CUBA:Fidel Castro suggested yesterday that he might stand down to make way for a leader from the younger generation. The move is being seen as a significant step in a likely handover of power that could occur as early as March, with the Cuban president possibly retaining an honorary role and title.
"My essential duty is not to cling to office nor to obstruct the rise of people much younger, but to pass on experience and ideas whose modest value arises from the exceptional times in which I lived," said the man who has led the country since the 1959 revolution, in a letter read out on national television.
Castro, now 81, has been in poor health since an operation in July last year. His brother, Raul (76), has been the acting president, but it was always felt that his role was temporary and that a younger person would take over in the long term.
The current favourite for the post is Carlos Lage, the 56-year- old vice-president.
In January an election will take place for the Cuban national assembly, which, in turn, will elect the president in March. That could be the time that a new leader emerges, just as the US is choosing its own presidential candidates.
"This is a highly significant move by Castro," said Stephen Wilkinson, of the International Institute for the Study of Cuba at London Metropolitan University.
"By hinting that he would not wish to hinder younger people from coming forward, he has rather coyly invited the population to express their support for him. This in turn opens the way for a broader discussion about the one who might follow him."
Wilkinson said he was in Cuba last week and found opinion was that Castro was too frail to resume power and ought to step aside. However, until such an announcement, "that was not an opinion that could be easily expressed openly, since most people also respected that he had the right to make the choice".
Meanwhile, Lage is emerging as the likeliest successor. The vice-president, a paediatrician, has overseen recent economic changes in Cuba, which have included the negotiations for oil from Venezuela, whose president, Hugo Chavez, is Castro's strongest international supporter.
Other candidates whose names have been mentioned include Felipe Perez Roque (41), the foreign minister and Castro's former chief of staff, and Ricardo Alarcon, the former ambassador to the UN and president of the national assembly.
National assembly vice-president Jaime Crombet said last month Castro was still intellectually strong but people recognised that he could no longer carry out the same workload as before.