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President Raúl Castro, 80, mentioned in passing during a speech at an international summit that he could be replaced by another person “maybe soon.”
“In a — maybe close — future, the president who in that case represents my country could do it in English. I speak English very, very bad,” Castro joked, switching from Spanish to English, during the Cuba-Caricom summit Dec. 8 in Trinidad & Tobago. “At my age it will be difficult, but the next one must speak English.”
According to the Cuban constitution, the national assembly elects a president of the Council of State every five years. When assuming the presidency in 2008 at age 77 from his older brother, Castro hinted that he may be a one-term president; his current term ends in 2013.
In January, a conference of the Communist Party is expected to take important personnel decisions aiming at rejuvenating the aging Party and state apparatus.
During his summit speech, Castro said it was a “necessity” for his successor to speak English because of the global importance of the language and the fact that some of Cuba’s Caribbean neighbors speak English.
In a punch at the United States, he said Cubans would prefer to be “mute” if it was only about Cuba’s “northern neighbors.”
[...] Castro, 80, began his first five-year term as president in 2008. In a recent speech in Trinidad and Tobago, he alluded to a succession “in a maybe close [...]