Change Without King Fidel?

since

the chances of change in Cuba while King Fidel is alive are zero, nil, none, zip;

it would follow that

the chances of change in Cuba after King Fidel is gone for good have got to be better than that.

it is well known that King Fidel allows change only to the extent necessary, and only to the extent that they can be controlled. for example, during the crisis period following the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of subsidies to Cuba, King Fidel allowed enough economic (i.e. capitalist) activity to keep the country going. as soon as the new economy (based on tourism and remittances from abroad) became sufficiently strong, King Fidel reigned back all the promising economic change.

back to square one.

while King Fidel is alive, no meaningful change can come to Cuba.

after King Fidel dies, there is an opportunity for change. Cuban dissidents certainly feel that way. their hopes are somewhat reinforced after Raul's comments that he supports normalization of relations with the US (so long as the US stops interfering in how Cuba is governed).

Raul Castro was instrumental in the economic reforms later swept back by King Fidel. his armed forces run 60% of the tourism industry in Cuba, the backbone of the new economy. he has long admired the Chinese model of a mixed communist-capitalist system.

another promising sign is that Carlos Lage, a long-time Fidel protege and member of the elite few in Cuba who have access to Fidel, has been featured more and more in the news, signaling he is stepping up in his assumed duties.


carlos lage

why is that significant? Lage helped create other limited reforms that helped Cuba survive economic crisis after the Soviet Union collapsed — allowing trade in U.S. dollars and foreign investment, spinning off state farms into cooperatives and legalizing hundreds of small private businesses. certainly, Lage is no stranger to reforms.

if, as more and more observers seem to be realizing (I covered this very theme a while back), the death of Fidel will result in "reformists" coming to power (within the context of communist Cuba), things can only be heading for a change, and in Cuba, that can only mean good things.

that change, we predict, will result in a more open economy, which will result in more political freedoms, slowly but surely.

and after Raul is gone (he is 75, after all, has a bad heart and is rumored to be a heavy drinker), the even younger generation will come to power. those younger men and women (mostly men, despite Cuba's talk about the equality of women) would have been groomed to manage, and would have gone on to manage, the tourism industry, Cuba's cash cow, and as a result will be familiar with the principles of a market economy.

it's not much of a stretch to believe that they will push for more, not less, economic autonomy.