MIAMI — Cuban leader Fidel Castro's decision to step down as head of state after nearly half a century could signal the passing of power to a new generation and fresh hope for the island nation through economic reforms.
Tuesday's resignation letter, which includes candid disclosures about his flagging health, was an unequivocal indication that the 81-year-old revolutionary is choreographing his own succession and leaving on his own terms. Castro, who has run Cuba for 49 years, ranks as the world's longest-ruling head of state outside of monarchs.
He will remain first secretary of Cuba's Communist Party and a member of parliament and is likely to continue to serve in an advisory role behind the scenes.
Officials in Washington said there were no immediate plans to change U.S. policy toward Cuba, including its trade embargo. In Miami's large exile community, reaction was subdued.
Castro's 76-year-old brother, Raul, who began leading the country when Fidel fell ill and temporarily ceded power to him 19 months ago, has widely been considered the likely next head of state. Raul is the constitutionally designated successor to his brother by virtue of his No. 2 position in the party hierarchy.
But the elder Castro recently has indicated that he may favor a younger, more energetic person to succeed him. He has hinted that someone else might emerge Sunday when the newly elected National Assembly convenes to propose a new executive body, the 31-member Council of State.
"He's catching up to me in years, so it's also a generational problem," Castro says of Raul in his autobiography, "Fidel Castro: My Life," released in English this year by Scribner.
Speculation about who may become president, if not Raul, has centered on Vice President Carlos Lage, a 56-year-old physician by training who has been representing Cuba at international events in Castro's absence.
Lage designed and implemented a slate of modest economic reforms in the early 1990s, after the Soviet Union collapsed and billions of dollars in annual subsidies to Cuba stopped overnight. Those changes allowed thousands of Cubans to open small private businesses, many catering to foreign visitors and giving rise to the first tourism boom on the island under communist rule.
In addition to Castro and Lage, others mentioned as possible heads of state are Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque, who at 42 is the only senior Cuban official born after Castro came to power, and National Assembly President Ricardo Alarcon, 70, who has remained active and visible in the nation's affairs during Castro's absence.
