Castro proposes term limits

HAVANA – Raul Castro proposed term limits Saturday for Cuban politicians – including himself – a remarkable gesture on an island ruled for 52 years by him and his brother. The 79-year-old president lamented the lack of young leaders in government, saying the country was paying the price for errors made in the past.

Castro told delegates to a crucial Communist Party summit that he would launch a “systematic rejuvenation” of the government. He said politicians and other important officials should be restricted to two consecutive five-year terms, including “the current president of the Council of State and his ministers” – a reference to himself.

Castro officially took over from his brother Fidel in 2008, meaning he would be at least 86 at the end of a second term, depending on how the law is written.

The proposal was made toward the end of a 2  1/2 hour speech in which the Cuban leader forcefully backed a laundry list of changes to the country’s socialist economic system, including the eventual elimination of ration books and other subsidies, the decentralization of the island nation’s economy and a new reliance on supply and demand in some sectors.

Still, he drew a line in the sand as to which reforms should remain, telling party luminaries that he had rejected dozens of suggested reforms that would have allowed the concentration of property in private hands.

The Cuban leader alternated between reassurances that the economic changes were compatible with socialism and a brutal assessment of the mistakes the country had made. Fidel Castro was not present for the speech.

Raul Castro said the monthly ration book of basic foods, perhaps the most cherished of subsidies, represented an “unbearable burden … and a disincentive for work.”

He said the changes he is proposing will come “without hurry, but without pause.”

Of term limits, Castro said he and his brother had made various attempts to promote young leaders, but that they had not worked out well – perhaps a reference to the 2009 firing of Cuba’s photogenic foreign minister and vice president, who were later accused of lusting too obviously for power.

“Today we face the consequences of not having a reserve of substitutes ready,” Castro said.

The Communist Party is the only political organization recognized on the island, and most politicians are members. Cubans vote for municipal and national assemblies, which in turn elect senior leaders including the president. Currently there is no set limit on their terms.

Raul Castro has also pledged to end Cuba’s unusual two-tiered currency system, where wages are paid in pesos, while many imported goods are available only in a dollar-linked economy beyond most people’s reach. The president, however, has said little about how or when he will accomplish that.

Earlier Saturday, Cuba put on a rousing military and civilian parade to mark the 50th anniversary of the Bay of Pigs attack of 1961, when Fidel Castro’s 2-year-old government routed an invasion force of some 1,200 Cuban exiles supported by the CIA.