There had been fears of abstention ahead of the vote as the government struggles with shortages, inflation and growing social unrest. But official figures say some 8 million people - more than 70% of eligible voters - turned out on the day.
April 23, 2021 last updated 13:52 ET Raul Castro, right, with Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel at the closing session of the Cuban Communist Party’s eighth congress, in Havana, April 19, 2021 (ACN photo by Ariel Ley Royero via AP).
Cuba’s Post-Castro Leaders Must Deliver the Goods
On Monday, the 60th anniversary of the failed Bay of Pigs invasion, Raul Castro stepped down as leader of the Cuban Communist Party. Between them, Raul and his late brother, Fidel, led Cuba since the triumph of the revolution in January 1959.
But Raul Castro’s resignation more than six decades later, at the party’s Eighth Congress, represents more than just the retirement of an aging revolutionary with a storied last name. His departure marks the final stage of a leadership transition from the “historic” generation that founded the revolutionary regime to a successor generation born after 1959. All five of the remaining veteran leaders who had governed the co