Castro era to end during Cuban Communist Party Congress

BOGOTA, Colombia

The Communist Party of Cuba inaugurated on Friday a historic four-day Congress, during which the Caribbean island will see the last of the Castro brothers leave the political scene.

Six decades after the government headed by Fidel and Raul Castro was installed following the leftist 1959 revolution, 89-year-old Raul has indicated that he will step down as First Secretary of the Communist Party, Cuba's most powerful position.

Fidel Castro’s younger brother announced in 2016 that he would retire at the party's eighth congress and give the reins to new generations of revolutionaries led by Miguel Diaz-Canel, who took over as Cuba's president in 2018.

Castro is expected to cede the post to Diaz-Canel, whose presidency has represented continuity of the socialist model.

The succession coincides with the 60th anniversary of the failed military assault at the Bay of Pigs by anti-Castro paramilitaries trained and financed by the CIA in 1961.

In addition to the generational changeover, the agenda of the Congress that comes together under the banner “continuity and unity,” will focus on analyzing the results of the economic reforms implemented a decade ago and other social changes included recently like increased internet access.

The meeting will take place amid a surge in the pandemic and the tightening of the US decades-old trade embargo on Cuba, which has plunged the nation of 11 million into a brutal economic crisis.

Its economy shrank 11% in 2020 and many Cubans spend hours in food and medicine lines while the country faces its worst outbreak of COVID-19 since the beginning of the pandemic, which has infected more than 90,000 people and killed 500.

Under the former President Donald Trump administration, the US tightened restrictions on Americans’ travel to Cuba and goods from the island nation. Although current President Joe Biden promised to ease restrictions, so far he has not dealt with the island.

BOGOTA, Colombia

The Communist Party of Cuba inaugurated on Friday a historic four-day Congress, during which the Caribbean island will see the last of the Castro brothers leave the political scene.

Castro is expected to cede the post to Diaz-Canel, whose presidency has represented continuity of the socialist model.

The succession coincides with the 60th anniversary of the failed military assault at the Bay of Pigs by anti-Castro paramilitaries trained and financed by the CIA in 1961.

The meeting will take place amid a surge in the pandemic and the tightening of the US decades-old trade embargo on Cuba, which has plunged the nation of 11 million into a brutal economic crisis.