With Melissa Block It’s the end of an era in Cuba, as President Raúl Castro steps down. After Cuba’s National Assembly nominated Cuban First Vice President
With Melissa Block
It’s the end of an era in Cuba, as President Raúl Castro steps down. After Cuba’s National Assembly nominated Cuban First Vice President Miguel Diaz-Canel to replace Castro, we’ll look at what’s next for the country.
Guests:
Alan Gomez, immigration reporter at USA Today. ( @alangomez)
Patrick Oppmann, CNN Correspondent based in Havana, Cuba. ( @CNN_Oppmann)
Pedro Freyre, International Practice Chair at the Miami-based firm Akerman, which specializes in helping U. S. companies do business in Cuba.
Carlos Eire, Professor of history and religious studies at Yale University, author of “Waiting for Snow in Havana: Confessions of a Cuban Boy” (2003) and “Learning to Die in Miami: Confessions of a Refugee Boy” (2010).
Achy Obejas, Cuban-American writer and translator. ( @achylandia)
From the reading list:
CNN: Cuba’s National Assembly nominates Miguel Diaz-Canel to succeed Raul Castro as president — “Cuba’s first vice president is the apparent successor to Raul Castro: the 57-year-old technocrat Díaz-Canel, who has promised to hew closely to the course set by the Castro brothers. ‘I believe in continuity,’ Díaz-Canel told reporters recently when asked about his vision for Cuba’s future. ‘I think there always will be continuity.’
‘Continuity’ most likely means continued restrictions on the private sector for Cubans, tight controls on foreign investment and no openings to the single-party political system.”
Miami Herald: Miguel Díaz-Canel is the only official candidate for Cuba’s next president — “In the past year, the Cuba leadership has increasingly thrust Díaz-Canel, a former education minister, into the spotlight, making him the face of hurricane recovery efforts after Irma slammed the island last September, sending him on foreign trips and making him available for symbolic photo ops. But few Cubans know what to expect from the man who became first vice president of the Council of State and Council of Ministers in 2013 and has managed to survive the treacherous waters of Cuban politics for five years.”
In Cuba, six decades of Castro rule come to an end, as Raúl Castro steps down as President. His hand-picked successor represents a younger generation, born after the revolution. But how much will change? Have recent economic reforms in Cuba born fruit? And what’s the effect of President Trump rolling back policies of the Obama administration – that moved toward normalized relations?
This hour, On Point: the way forward in Cuba, after the Castros.
— Melissa Block
