ABSTRACT
For the first time in more than fifty years, Fidel Castro is not presiding over Cuba. On February 24, 2008, the National Assembly of Popular Power named his younger brother, Raúl Castro, then seventy-six, president of the Council of State and the Council of Ministers. Since July 2006 Raúl had held interim power. Now he is formally in charge and, for the most part, substantively as well. As long as he is alive and mentally alert, however, the Comandante will remain a potent symbol and an influential voice.
