Posted on Wed, Nov. 21, 2007
The Associated Press
HAVANA --
Newly elected municipal assemblies will chose candidates for provincial
and national assemblies on Dec. 2 in a process that could reveal whether
ailing leader Fidel Castro will remain head of Cuba's government,
official television reported late Wednesday.
A forecaster on the evening news read a resolution signed by Castro's
younger brother Raul, who is serving as Cuba's provisional leader,
issuing the call for the Dec. 2 meetings across the island.
The 81-year-old Fidel Castro must be nominated as a candidate for deputy
to the National Assembly, or parliament, and be re-elected in Jan. 20
national elections to remain in the running for the Council of State
presidency he has held since 1976. Previously Cuba's prime minister,
Castro has been the nation's unchallenged leader since 1959.
Castro, who has not appeared in public since falling ill 16 months ago,
has not indicated whether he will seek to retain the country's top
political post. His exact ailment and condition remain state secrets,
but he has continued to regular publish essays carried in state media,
mostly on international themes, and is said to be involved in government
affairs.
Every five years after national elections, new parliament deputies meet
to choose from themselves a new ruling Council of State, including its
president . Castro officially continues to hold the presidency even
though he stepped aside provisionally for his 76-year-old brother Raul
on July 31, 2006, after announcing he underwent intestinal surgery.
The elder Castro, born and raised in eastern Cuba, for many years has
been a parliament deputy representing the eastern city of Santiago, even
though he has lived in Havana since the 1959 revolution that brought him
to power.
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