Latin America

Quo Vadis Cuba?

By Kai ⋅ March 18, 2008 ⋅  Email this post ⋅  Print This Post ⋅ Post a comment

After almost 50 years in power, last month Fidel Castro stepped down as Cuba’s President and handed the reins to his brother Raul. Castro’s resignation spurred speculation on the future of Cuba. In particular, will political and economic reforms be implemented? Will the island become a liberal democracy in the near future?

For the moment it is clear that reform will not come from the top. Raul Castro himself declared that there will be no changes in the communist structures governing the island since 1961, and that no political transition will take place. This was reinforced by the election of 77-year old revolutionary leader Jose Ramon Machado to the No. 2 spot – an assurance to the old guard that no new and sudden changes are likely. This is hardly surprising – it is difficult to imagine the gerontocracy that governs Cuba willingly giving up power soon.

However, the key question is not whether internal political transition is imminent. Rather, it is to what extent Raul Castro can maintain a system that is under external pressure, because it has historically based its legitimacy on Fidel’s personal leadership.

In Cuba, communist revolution and Fidel are synonymous. Now, even though Fidel will not disappear completely from the public sphere, he will suddenly not be taking the country’s most important political decisions anymore. Fidel’s departure from the public scene is, therefore, already a substantial breach from the past.

Further, economic conditions have deteriorated tremendously on the island since the demise of the Soviet Union in the early 90s. Moscow was not only Cuba’s main commercial partner, it also used to provide the country with non-negligible military and economic aid. Once that aid stopped Cuban authorities decided to look for alternative sources of dollars, mainly to maintain the country’s education and health infrastructures – considered to be the revolution’s most important achievements. The solution the local authorities found was to open the island’s doors to international tourism investors. This allowed the communist regime to earn much needed dollars to preserve the health and education systems. However it did little to improve the overall socio-economic situation of the majority of Cubans. It is not necessary to be a political scientist to understand that a combination of poor socio-economic conditions and lack of political liberties is the most common factor for regime change.

The good news for Raul Castro and his fellow gerontocrats is that there are no real opposition movements in Cuba. This is thanks mainly to the policy of repression exercised by the government since the beginning of the revolution – there are currently more than 750 political prisoners in the island.

However, in this case the winds of change might come from within: the youngest ranks of the party have started to express their discontent with the way the political and economic situation is being handled by the government. This would have been very unlikely not to say impossible two or three years ago. If divisions deepen it will be harder to continue with the policies of political repressions, and a real opportunity for an organized opposition might arise, along with a new future for Cuba.

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Tags: communism, cuba