Cuba: Plus Ça Change?

• DOI: https://doi.org/10.13169/intejcubastud.10.1.0005
• Published date: 01 April 2018
• Date: 01 April 2018
• Pages: 5-7
• Author: Stephen Wilkinson

IJCS Produced and distributed by Pluto Journals www.plutojournals.com/ijcs/

EDITORIAL

CUBA: PLUS ÇA CHANGE?

Stephen Wilkinson

As this edition of the IJCS went to press, Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermudez was

elected President of Cuba’s Council of State and, with it, a new era in the coun-

try’s history began. For the first time in most Cubans’ memories, their head of

state is not a Castro, and for the first time since the constitution of 1976, the

Presidency and the leadership of the Communist Party is not being held by the

same person. This is clearly a significant change, and yet, in the paradoxical

manner of the Cuban revolution, it is at the same time a mark of continuity.

Indeed, in his very first speech as President, Mr Díaz-Canel emphasised that

continuity by describing the political role that the former President, Raúl Castro,

will be playing for the next three years at least. He said,

Raúl remains at the forefront of the political vanguard. He remains our First

Secretary [of the Communist Party], as the reference for the revolutionary cause …,

teaching and always ready to confront imperialism …. Knowing the popular

sentiment, I state before this Assembly that compañero Raúl will head the

decisions for the present and future of the nation.

Thus, President Díaz-Canel indicated that his role as President up to 2021, when

the next Communist Party Congress will elect a new General Secretary, will be

about the management and delivery of government policy under the strategic

direction of Raúl Castro.

Elsewhere in his remarks, President Díaz-Canel confirmed that neither for-

eign nor domestic policy will be changed: ‘I do not come to promise anything, as

the Revolution never has in all these years. I come to fulfil the programme that

we have implemented with the guidelines of Socialism and the Revolution.’

Thus, although his election was widely described in the Cuban media as signifi-

cant, the new President’s remarks and the composition of the new Council of State

suggest a rather slow and cautious approach, and Cuba’s historic generation will