|
Havana: Raul Castro was nominated on Sunday to be Cuba's next president, succeeding his sick brother Fidel Castro, who retired five days ago after 49 years at the helm of the West's last communist country, a deputy said.
Raul Castro, 76, is expected to be confirmed president within hours by the National Assembly, deputy Julio Mendez said.
As the Cuban lawmakers met , Castro's seat was empty.
As the names of the new National Assembly's 614 members were read aloud, mention of the absent Castro drew a standing ovation.
Castro's ballot with his votes for governing Council of State members, including his replacement, was delivered to parliament.
Parliament gave another standing ovation to Castro's 76-year-old brother Raul, the defence minister, who is widely expected to be chosen to replace Fidel Castro as president.
The younger Castro has headed Cuba's caretaker government for 19 months, ever since Fidel announced he had undergone emergency intestinal surgery and was provisionally ceding his powers.
The National Assembly, whose members were elected to five-year terms on January 20, will choose a new 31-member Council of State and its president, who serves as the country's head of state and government. Fidel Castro has held the position since the current government structure was created in 1976. For 18 years before that, he was prime minister — a post that no longer exists.
He remains the head of the Communist Party as first secretary.
In the eastern Cuba district that Fidel Castro represents as a lawmaker, residents debated on Saturday who should replace him. "Fidel is the greatest for us, but the most important thing now is that he rests and takes good care of himself," said 72-year-old retiree Juan Alvarez. "I think that he made an intelligent decision — like all the decisions he made" since launching Cuba's revolution in the mid-1950s.
Alvarez said he would accept whoever is chosen by the National Assembly, "and if it is Raul, well, that would be correct."
Sitting with him in a park in the town of El Cobre, on the outskirts of Santiago, was 70-year-old Javier Solano, who noted that Raul Castro is no longer young either. "It would be good to look for a young replacement, like Fidel himself said in one of his writings, so that Cuba can show the world it is not like they say, that here there is only Fidel and Raul," said Solano. "There is a whole nation as well behind them."
|
