HAVANA – Fidel Castro said Tuesday he resigned five years ago from all his official positions, including head of Cuba’s Communist Party, a pre-eminent job in the island’s political pantheon that he was thought to still hold.
In this Sept. 28, 2010, file photo, Cuba’s leader Fidel Castro delivers a speech during the 50th anniversary of the Committee for the Defense of the Revolution, CDR, in Havana, Cuba. Castro said Tuesday, March 22, 2011, he resigned five years ago from all his official positions, including head of Cuba’s Communist Party, a position he was thought to still hold. (AP Photo/Javier Galeano, File)It was the first time the 84-year-old revolutionary icon has said he no longer heads the Communist Party, which he has led since its creation in 1965. The Communist Party website still lists him as first secretary, with his brother President Raul Castro listed as second secretary.
The declaration raised questions about just how much power Fidel Castro has been wielding behind the scenes – with or without a formal post – and to what extent Raul Castro has had true freedom to make his own decisions.
Castro wrote in an opinion piece that when he got sick in 2006, “I resigned without hesitation from my state and political positions, including first secretary of the party … and I never tried to exercise those roles again.”
He said that even when his health began to improve, he stayed out of state and party affairs “even though everyone, affectionately, continued to refer to me by the same titles.”