In Cuba, likely Castro successor keeps a low profile

In Cuba, likely Castro successor keeps a low profile
BY TRACY WILKINSONLOS ANGELES TIMES
02/17/2015 9:47 AM 02/17/2015 9:47 AM

HAVANA
The man expected to run Cuba after Raul Castro steps down is nearly 30
years the president's junior and is regularly on Facebook in this
Internet-starved country.

He is considered personable, but has been careful to keep a low
political profile.

Miguel Diaz-Canel's appointment as first vice president is the most
concrete signal that a generational change of leadership may be in the
works in Cuba, matching a demographic shift that makes the island's
population one of the youngest in the hemisphere.

Castro, 83, plucked Diaz-Canel from relative obscurity and appointed him
to his new position in 2013 as he announced that he planned to leave
office in 2018. That set Diaz-Canel up as heir apparent, especially
after other possible candidates were dumped when they were secretly
recorded talking about their ambitions.

That is still a no-no, and Diaz-Canel has taken pains not to steal the
limelight from Castro or the president's 88-year-old brother, Fidel, the
legendary revolutionary commander and former president who has not been
seen in public in months.

The circumstances mean Diaz-Canel has yet to make much of a mark. On an
island where about 80 percent of the population has never known a
president who wasn't named Castro, many Cubans are struggling to figure
out who he is.

Many among Cuba's younger generation agree that whoever comes next has a
herculean task to court the powerful military, restructure the economy
and guide the normalization process with the United States that was
announced in December.

"We've lived many years with a dynasty," said Katrina Morejon, a health
worker in her 20s from Havana. "People are tired of what's happening."

Leaders of the army, of which Raul Castro is still the supreme
commander, control several segments of the economy and will have to be
carefully cultivated if Diaz-Canel is to work well with them. Diaz-Canel
was born more than a year after the Cuban Revolution led by the Castro
brothers ousted dictator Fulgencio Batista in 1959.

Raul Castro is expected in the final years of his government to continue
with slow but important reforms in the economy, allowing a measure of
free enterprise and lifting some restrictions on trade and travel.
Whether it is enough as relations with the United States change will be
the big test.

The goals stated by Cuba and the U.S. after decades of animosity include
elevating diplomatic representations in both countries to full embassies
rather than the limited "interests sections."

Handling the new relationship will put pressure on whoever is president
of Cuba. Castro has made it clear that better diplomatic ties with
Washington should not change Cuba's domestic, political or economic
system, nor its intolerance of dissent.

At 54, Diaz-Canel, is the freshest face in the highest echelons of Cuban
power. He recognizes the importance of Cuba joining the Internet age,
somewhat against the official grain, people who know him say.

A 1982 graduate of the Marta Abreu University of Las Villas with an
electrical engineering degree, Diaz-Canel essentially paid his dues,
putting hard, careful work ahead of the overt ambition that has felled
many an up-and-comer on the Cuban political landscape.

His work on behalf of the state has included teaching at the university
level, running local governments, serving as a minister of education and
holding regional Communist Party leadership posts. He was assigned
management of what Cuban officials consider major areas of
accomplishment by the revolution: education, sports and biotechnology.
He also did a stint in Nicaragua, representing the Communist Party
before like-minded Sandinista leaders.

Much of his personal life has been kept private. He is thought to be
married with children. He is well-liked by Cubans in the provinces, many
of whom see him as down-to-earth and accessible.

His Facebook page has photographs of Diaz-Canel with workers, Raul
Castro and others during visits to factories in Villa Clara and
elsewhere. He is usually shown in a white guayabera, or a sports jacket
and open-collar shirt. Someone has posted items calling him MDC, and at
one point nominating him to run the country, saying, "MDC rocks!"

"He is well-liked, young, well-educated, and he's gone through all the
different hoops," said Rafael Betancourt, a professor at the University
of Havana. That he is admired in the often snippy world of university
circles, Betancourt said, "is very significant" and shows he has talent
for handling people.

It appears the Cuban leadership is gradually, gingerly trying to elevate
his profile. He has been sent abroad representing Castro, especially to
friendly nations like Venezuela and Laos.

It's always a delicate balancing act, however. In a speech in Mexico in
December, he managed to mention both Castros in the first three
paragraphs of his comments, then quote Raul twice more.

Communist-controlled press on the island has started to run fairly
regular articles about Diaz-Canel's activities: his trip to Santiago de
Cuba, his visit with workers in Santa Clara.

But there are no big billboards promoting Diaz-Canel; most such public
advertising is still limited to a Castro or, especially, the five Cuban
intelligence agents who were recently released from jail in the U.S.,
two because they finished their sentences and three as part of the deal
to jump-start detente with the U.S. They are regarded as heroes in Cuba.

Diaz-Canel is nowhere to be seen.

"He is too much in the shadows of Raul," said Arturo Lopez Levy, a
former Cuban intelligence analyst who knew Diaz-Canel in their hometown
of Santa Clara and who now teaches in New York. "A good signal to send
to the world now that things are changing would be to give him a more
prominent role."

If he were the son of a corporate boss brought into the firm, Diaz-Canel
would fit the bill, having been assigned to Communist Party leadership
posts in important provinces like Holguin and Villa Clara. There, people
who know him say he cultivated good relationships with local military
officials, some of whom have recently been promoted to leadership posts.

His real distinction, people say, has been in social media and computer
technology, an area where Cuba lags notoriously behind the rest of the
world. Few Cubans have open access to the Internet, but Diaz-Canel knows
its importance to any future growth in business, trade, tourism and
education, analysts say.

"The development of information technology is essential to the search
for new solutions to development problems" in Latin America, Diaz-Canel
said in the Mexico speech. "But the digital gap is also a reality among
our countries, and between our countries and other countries, which we
must overcome if we want to eliminate social and economic inequalities."

Diaz-Canel is also often praised as a hands-on problem solver, someone
who could get things done at the grass-roots level and who understands
the politics of persuasion. He once defended a gay theater group against
local officials who wanted to shut it down, earning respect among some
of Cuba's most marginalized citizens.

Riaz-Canel's gradual ascension comes with a little-noticed, still-slight
change in the Cuban political hierarchy.

Rafael Hernandez, a political commentator and editor of Temas magazine
in Cuba, said conventional wisdom often holds that "the Cuban leadership
is the same, you have Fidel and then Raul, and it's more or less the
same thing."

But, he says, closer examination shows a changing leadership that
includes more women and Afro-Cubans, long excluded, than ever before.

That may bode well for Diaz-Canel's future leadership, but many Cuba
watchers agree that it will ultimately be the military that calls the shots.

"The military may not be a threat, but it will always be there," Lopez
Levy said. Diaz-Canel "has an arduous road to walk."

Source: In Cuba, likely Castro successor keeps a low profile | The Miami
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