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HAVANA: Cuban leader Fidel Castro has said he would
give up power for good, but the island has been left in suspense
over who will take the helm amid hopes his successor will break with
the authoritarian past.
All eyes will turn to the
national assembly on Sunday when the communist country’s
legislature picks a new head of state to replace the 81-year-old
Castro, who was sidelined by gastrointestinal surgery in July 2006.
His brother, the 76-year-old Raul
Castro, is widely considered the likely successor after serving as a
provisional president for the last 19 months.
But analysts believe that
Cuba’s powerbrokers could turn to a new generation of leaders
after nearly half a century of Castro rule. Vice President Carlos
Lage, 56, is also seen as a potential successor.
Meanwhile, whoever takes the
reins will likely face international pressure to pave the way for
democracy and a free market economy, and bring an end to the only
one-party-rule of a country in the Americas.
Castro took power in 1959 after
his band of bearded guerrilla fighters ousted dictator Fulgencio
Batista. Famed for his rumpled olive fatigues, scraggly beard and
the cigars he reluctantly gave up for his health, Castro dodged
everything his enemies could throw at him, including assassination
plots and the failed US-backed Bay of Pigs invasion bid. During his
tenure, the world came to the brink of nuclear war in the 1962 Cuban
Missile Crisis, when the Soviet Union sought to position
nuclear-tipped rockets on the island, just 144 kilometers (90 miles)
from Florida.
--AFP
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