FAREWELL AT LAST
[1] Rafael is about to finish his degree at Havana University, but his mind is elsewhere. The finance and economics he is learning are “what they use here
in Cuba”, he explains, ie, not much use anywhere else. Cuba’s socialist government pays for his education but the stipend for living expenses is just $4 a
month, enough for ten meals at the university canteen. Additional lunch money comes from his siblings [irmãos e irmãs], who live abroad. Rafael (not his
real name) wants to go, too. He is looking for scholarships to get a master’s degree in Europe. If he finds one, he plans to stay abroad, where he can earn
real money.
[2] Rafael is among the many young Cubans who respond to their crimped [restringidos, obstruídos] prospects not by agitating against the system but by
plotting to escape it. He does not oppose Cuba’s communist regime, nor does he take much interest in it. So he is unexcited by a power shift that will make
headlines around the world. On April 19th Raúl Castro plans to step down as president, bringing to an end nearly 60 years of rule by the family that led the
country’s revolution. Rafael thinks it is time for Mr Castro to go. But “it doesn’t matter to me.”
[3] It will matter to most of Cuba’s 11 million people, who have no easy way off the island. In a country where transfers of power are rare, the one that will
soon occur [on April 19th 2018] is momentous. Mr Castro, who is 86, is expected to hand power to the “first” vice-president, Miguel Díaz-Canel. He had not
been born when Raúl’s brother, Fidel Castro, toppled the American-backed dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista in 1959. The post-revolutionary generation
will bring a change in style and raise Cubans’ expectations of their government. It is unclear whether the new leaders will meet them.
[4] Mr Díaz-Canel, an engineer by training, has acquired a reputation for modesty during his quiet three-decade ascent through government and the
Communist Party. As a leader in his home province of Villa Clara, in central Cuba, he rode around on a bicycle rather than in an official car. At the (one-
party) parliamentary elections last month, he queued up with other voters and chatted to the press (Mr Castro zipped in and out of his polling station).
[5] Mr Díaz-Canel has sometimes seemed more liberal than other party officials. He backed gay rights before it was fashionable. In 2013 he calmed a furore
caused by the censorship of some student bloggers who were critical of the government. He met the students in front of the press and said that in the
internet age “banning something is almost a delusion.”
[6] His elevation to the presidency will be part of a broader generational change. Several octogenarian conservatives, such as José Ramón Machado Ventura
and Ramiro Valdés, will probably leave the council of state, a body with lawmaking powers. Mr Díaz-Canel is expected to replace government ministers
with his own people.
[7] But substantive change, if it happens, will not be abrupt. Although la generación histórica will no longer run the government day to day, it will still be
influential. Until 2021 Mr Castro is expected to remain head of the Politburo, which controls the Communist Party and thus the overall direction of policy.
Mr Ventura will remain second-in-command. Mr Díaz-Canel will be only the third most powerful member.
[8] He may not be the reformer some Cubans are hoping for.
Adapted from The Economist, April 14th 2018.
According to the information in the article, the transfer of power scheduled for April 19th will
