Castro's departure won't bring rapid change

Fidel Castro's departure as Cuba's president probably will not spark immediate change in the lives of everyday Cubans or a rapid thawing of the long-frosty relations between the communist-ruled island and the United States, analysts said after Castro's announcement Tuesday.

The announcement came simply in the form of a letter posted on the Web site of the state-run newspaper, Granma. "I am saying that I will neither aspire to nor accept, I repeat, I will neither aspire to nor accept the positions of President of the State Council and Commander in Chief," Castro, 81, said.

U.S. policy is unlikely to shift until a new American president takes office in January 2009. And while Castro's designated successor, his 76-year-old brother, Raul, has called for economic reforms on the island, he has not yet announced any dramatic new initiatives, experts on Cuba said.

The Bush administration is ruling out any changes in its Cuba policy — including lifting a five-decade trade embargo — deriding Raul Castro as "dictator lite."

The next step in Cuba's unfolding new era comes Sunday, when the Cuban National Assembly meets and elects a Council of State, the island's main governing body.

The biggest surprise would be if Raul Castro is not named president but instead leaves the post to a younger leader, while retaining his position as head of Cuba's powerful military.

"I think there's a good chance a younger leader might be named," said Jonathan Brown, a Cuba expert at the University of Texas at Austin. "If I were Raul and I was interested in opening up to the outside world, I would keep my post in the army and allow others to go out on a limb with the opening."

In his autobiography, "Fidel Castro: My Life," published earlier this month by Scribner, Fidel Castro himself dropped hints that his brother might not succeed him.

"He is catching up to me in years, they keep coming, so it's also a generational problem," Castro wrote. "Already some generations are replacing others. I'm confident, but now there are new generations, because ours is passing into history."

Many experts believe a top contender is Carlos Lage, 56, vice president of the council and a longtime Raul Castro ally. A medical doctor, Lage was instrumental in drawing up economic reforms in the early 1990s during Cuba's crisis, triggered by the collapse of its longtime sponsor, the Soviet Union.