| The succession from Fidel to Raul Castro, programmed since the early days of the revolution, was efficient and effective. But, the hallucination in which Raul Castro intervenes forcefully to end the communist era and inaugurates a new democratic and market oriented Cuba is not how the story ends. |
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| General Raul Castro & Miguel Diaz-Canel |
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Given General Castro’s age, there will be another succession in the near future. Raul Castro’s perfunctory successor in the Communist Party, Jose Ramon Machado Ventura is nearly 90 years old and not obligatorily seen as the next Cuban leader. Miguel Diaz-Canel, the younger First Vice President of the Council of State, is not likely to be much more than a “civilian” figurehead for the Generals to present to the international community.
The appointment of Miguel Diaz-Canel, an under 60 years-old party apparatchik factotum, as First Vice President of the Council of State places him in line to succeed Raul Castro in that state body. This, however, is not equivalent to being number two in the regime as the international media seems to have concluded.
Article five of the Cuban constitution makes it clear that the Communist Party is “the superior leading force of the society and the State.” The fifteen-member Politburo of the Communist Party remains headed by Raul Castro as First Secretary, and by Machado Ventura as Second Secretary.
It is not often understood that Raul Castro leads Cuba not because he is president of the Council of State, but because he is First Secretary of the Communist Party and Fidel’s brother. Under the Cuban governing succession scheme the military dominated Politburo would recommend Cuba’s next leader.
The critical question is not what economic reforms General Castro may introduce, but rather what follows him. The younger Castro brother was in charge of the armed forces for nearly fifty years and has appointed his military officers and military family members to positions in government and industry. The “after Raul” succession will include his loyalists in the military and the Communist Party. Possible succession scenarios include a typical military dictatorship, or some “first among equals” approach. Yet, there is a more ominous plot in the making.
The role of the Cuban military in the economy is extensive and pervasive with the military managerial elite controlling over seventy percent of the economy. The breadth and depth of this military control of the country’s key economic sectors is astonishing. GAESA, the commercial holding company for the Cuban Defense Ministry, is involved in all key sectors of the economy, and enterprises with innocuous sounding names such as Gaviota, S.A. are all part of the vast economic involvement of Cuba’s Armed Forces (FAR).
The succession plot thickens when we consider that constitutionally, the President of the Council of State is also the Supreme Chief of the Revolutionary Armed Forces. Cuban history offers no tradition of military subordination to civilian rule. With Raul Castro gone, it is difficult to envision old comandantes like Ramiro Valdes and three star generals of the Politburo obediently offering military allegiance and saluting in subordination a civilian bureaucrat like Diaz-Canel. This comportment of unchallenged civilian command of the armed forces is not in the Cuban memes (cultural genes).
When thinking about change in Cuba, it is essential to keep in mind that Cuba’s history for the past half century is that of the Castro brothers and their ideas. Raul Castro’s inner circle is not made up of closet democrats waiting for an opportune moment to put into practice their long-suppressed Jeffersonian ideals. Their governing modality is ontologically inseparable from their ideology. In a symbiotic relationship authoritarianism engenders a corrupt oligarchy and that oligarchy profits from the continuation of corrupt authoritarianism.
General Castro, as a matter of survival not ideology, will introduce some tentative economic reforms, while simultaneously continuing to expand the metamorphosis of his officers into businessmen. Some will view this as a positive development, where warriors exchange their weapons for calculators. But we need to look for what happens next, when the Raul era comes to an end leaving FAR officers in political control as well as in control of all key sectors of the economy.
In a system where enterprises are state owned and managed, the military officers turned business executives enjoy the privileges of an elite ruling class. Yet, these benefits are miniscule when compared with the opportunities to gain significant affluence via a position of ownership in the enterprises under their control. It will not take long for the military elite to realize that managing government owned enterprises, offers only limited benefits - owning the enterprises is a far more rewarding and lucrative option.
Once the Castro brothers are no longer in the picture the military oligarchy will be highly motivated to lead the way towards a fabricated privatization of the economy. Specifically, the military officers will have every incentive to champion a manipulated privatization of the industries under their managerial control in order to convert their positions into wealth.
This, however, requires support from the international investment community and for that, the Cuban leadership must appear willing to make changes in the political realm; enter the Diaz-Canel designation. Surely, he is a capable, obedient, and disciplined party loyalist and fully aware of the dire fate of those civilians who preceded him in prominent positions when their loyalty was questioned e.g., Aldana, Lage, Robaina, Perez Roque.
Alas, not unlike the kleptocratic privatizations in Russia, this illegitimate and corrupt privatization process will transform the military elite into instant capitalist millionaires as the new Cuban “captains of industry.”
In the Cuban governing madhouse, General Castro is seeking regime continuity presenting a façade of political lawfulness that will enable his generals and family to monetize their loyalty. The military will oversee a hegemonic party system offering a patina of political legitimacy for the benefit of the international community.
The politically exhausted Cuban population may not view these ownership changes as particularly undesirable or nefarious. They may even mistakenly view them as a positive transition towards free markets and prosperity. The international community will also acclaim the mutated generals as agents of change bringing market reforms to Cuba, and, in the United States, the change in U.S.-Cuba policy introduced by President Obama will be declared a success.
In this disheartening scenario Cuban communism will have come to an end, leaving the generals and their heirs- devoid of a democratic culture- as the nouveau riche.
It is often argued that the introduction of economic reforms, even without political reforms, will lead sequentially and inexorably to democracy. Not so, without profound political reforms, putative economic changes conducted by a corrupt military will lead only to a transfer of wealth from the state to the ruling military/party elite. They are not a path to democracy for that tragic Island.
It is not important who fills the civilian poster face roles. After all, Roman Emperor Caligula, in his insanity or perversion, sought to make his favorite horse into a Roman Consul to show that a horse could perform a Senator’s duties.
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This article was originally published in English in the PanAm Post and in Spanish in El Nuevo Herald.
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