Obama’s Illusions About Post-Castro Cuba

the AZEL PERSPECTIVE Commentary on Cuba's Future, U.S. Foreign Policy & Individual Freedoms - Issue 23

Obama’s Illusions About Post-Castro Cuba Share Tweet Forward

Fidel Castro, visibly weak and infirm at the close of the Cuban Communist Party Congress on Tuesday, spoke of his own mortality: “Soon I will turn 90 years old,” he said. “Never would such a thing have occurred to me and it’s not the outcome of any effort; it was fate’s whim. Soon I will be like everyone else. To all of us comes our turn.” For the millions of Cubans who suffered for nearly five decades under Fidel’s brutal dictatorship, and those forced to flee their home and their families, his “turn” is long overdue. And sadly, when Fidel dies, his brother Raul, anointed in 2008 and “elected” again this week at the Communist Party Congress, will carry on as dictator while promoting the illusion of political change. A Möbius strip; traveling along the length of this strip, one would return to the starting point having traversed the entire length of the strip without ever crossing an edge. Under what I call a hegemonic party system, the emerging regime in Cuba will not rely on its revolutionary past or one man’s charisma, but on the institutionalization of a dominant political party, controlled by the military, designed to hold power in perpetuity. It will differ from Cuba’s current Leninist model in that some “opposition” parties will be tolerated. This opposition has no possibility of gaining power but suggests the false image of a totalitarian state in transition to democracy. This image will serve the regime well in projecting political stability and giving potential investors greater confidence in the long-term survival of the regime. It provides investors with the convenient rationalization that their activities are helping advance a democratization process. It also channels the opposition’s energy into participating in a rigged political process. Instead of factions operating against the whole, they become uncompetitive proto parties that are made part of the whole, much as we saw in Mexico under seven decades of PRI rule. The Cuban political transfiguration began in 2013 when Miguel Diaz-Canel was appointed first vice president of Cuba’s Council of State with the goal of grooming him as Raúl Castro’s successor. Mr. Diaz-Canel, a 56-year-old engineer with a military background, is portrayed as the young civilian face of the government. The mirage was reinforced by Raúl’s announcement that he will not seek the presidency of the National Assembly when his term expires in 2018. In an address last year to the United Nations, President Obama placed his expectations for change in Cuba on diplomacy and commerce: “We continue to have differences with the Cuban government. We will continue to stand up for human rights. But we address these issues through diplomatic relations, and increased commerce, and people-to-people ties.” The administration has failed to grasp that, with its help, the Cuban regime’s political trajectory will not follow a democratic path. It will crawl into a hegemonic party system that, as if following the length of a Möbius strip, always returns to its repressive origins. Please let us know if you  this article. This article was originally published in English in the Wall Street Journal.   José Azel, Ph.D. José Azel left Cuba in 1961 as a 13 year-old political exile in what has been dubbed Operation Pedro Pan - the largest unaccompanied child refugee movement in the history of the Western Hemisphere.   He is currently dedicated to the in-depth analyses of Cuba's economic, social and political state, with a keen interest in post-Castro-Cuba strategies as a Senior Scholar at the Institute for Cuban and Cuban-American Studies (ICCAS) at the University of Miami and has published extensively on Cuba related topics. In 2012 and 2015, Dr. Azel testified in the U.S. Congress on U.S.-Cuba Policy, and U.S. National Security.  He is a frequent speaker and commentator on these and related topics on local, national and international media.  He holds undergraduate and masters degrees in business administration and a Ph.D. in International Affairs from the University of Miami.  Dr. Azel is author of Mañana in Cuba: The Legacy of Castroism and Transitional Challenges for Cuba, published in March 2010 and of Pedazos y Vacios, a collection of poems he wrote as a young exile in the 1960's. José along with his wife Lily are avid skiers and adventure travelers.  In recent years they have climbed Grand Teton in Wyoming, trekked Mt. Kilimanjaro in Tanzania and Machu Pichu in Peru.  They have also hiked in Tibet and in the Himalayas to Mt. Everest Base Camp. They cycled St. James Way (El Camino de Santiago de Compostela) and cycled alongside the Danube from Germany to Hungary. They have scuba dived in the Bay Islands off the Honduran coast.  Their adventurers are normally dedicated to raise funds for causes that are dear to them.  Watch Joe & Lily summit Kilimanjaro. Books by Dr. José Azel Mañana in Cuba is a comprehensive analysis of contemporary Cuba with an incisive perspective of the Cuban frame of mind and its relevancy for Cuba's future. Buy now   Pedazos y Vacíos is a collection of poems written in by Dr. Azel in his youth. Poems are in Spanish. Buy now

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