For the first time since he and his brother came to power more than half a century ago, Cuban President Raul Castro proposed term limits for Cuba’s leaders, admitted that errors have left the country with no clear successor and promised to rejuvenate the nations’s political class.
The term-limit proposal made on Saturday at the launch of a key Communist Party summit would make it all but impossible for a repeat of the Castros’ own political dynasty, which has dominated Cuba since their 1959 revolution. However, it would have little practical impact on Raul’s future.
The 79-year-old leader officially took over from his brother, former Cuban president Fidel Castro, in 2008, meaning he wouldn’t be term-limited out of office until at least 2018, depending on how the law is written.
Raul Castro promised to launch a “systematic rejuvenation” of the government.
He said politicians and other important officials should be restricted to two consecutive five-year terms, including “the current president of the Council of State and his ministers” — a reference to himself.
The Cuban leader forcefully backed a laundry list of changes to the country’s socialist economic system, including the eventual elimination of ration books and other subsidies, the decentralization of the nation’s economy and a new reliance on supply and demand in some sectors.
He said that the party is far along in a study of whether to legalize the sale of cars and homes, which have been all but frozen since the revolution.
Still, Raul Castro drew a line in the Caribbean sand across which the reforms must never go, telling party luminaries that he had rejected dozens of suggested changes that would have allowed the concentration of property in private hands.
Raul Castro said the country had ignored its problems for too long, and made clear Cuba had to make tough decisions if it wanted to survive.
“No country or person can spend more than they have,” he said. “Two plus two is four. Never five, much less six or seven — as we have sometimes pretended.”
The Cuban leader alternated between reassurances that the economic changes were compatible with socialism, and a brutal assessment of the mistakes the country had made.
Along with the proposals on economic changes, the term-limit idea does not yet carry the force of law since the party gathering lacks the powers of parliament. However, it’s all but certain to be acted on quickly by the Cuban National Assembly.
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