It is a historic moment, a transfer of the torch between the old and the new generation. Raul Castro kept his word and made a point of translating into action the last will of Fidel Castro, who had indicated at a congress his wish to hand over to the new generation.
It is in this context that Raul Castro confirmed that he was ceding the leadership of the Cuban Communist Party to the younger generation at the congress that opened on Friday, April 16, ending six decades of reign of himself and of his older brother Fidel.
In a speech to mark the opening of the four-day event, 89-year-old Raul Castro said the new leaders were party loyalists who had risen through the ranks for decades and were “ full of passion and anti-imperialist spirit ”.
Castro had said at the last party convention in 2016 that it would be the last led by the “historic generation” that fought in the Sierra Maestra with Che Guevara to overthrow the US-backed Batista regime in the revolution of left of 1959. Raul had already ceded the presidency to his protégé Miguel Diaz-Canel, 60, in 2018.
Have this congress, a page turns. The last survivor and veteran of the historic generation who led the fight in the Sierra Maestra maquis allows the new generation to open the new page.
