Cuba’s Communist Party bent its own rules this week to promote an old-guard general to the organization’s top decision-making bodies, the latest in a number of recent changes reflecting the challenges of an aging military leadership’s grip on power.
Army corps general Ramon Espinosa, 83, the first vice minister of the Cuban armed forces, became a member of the Communist Party Politburo and its Central Committee during a Party meeting on Tuesday. His designation goes against the Party’s own rules modified in its latest Congress last year to ban officials 60 years and older from holding a seat at the Central Committee and those over 70 from becoming a member of the Politburo.
The secretary of the Central Committee, Roberto Morales Ojeda, asked members to select Espinosa despite the age limits, citing “his long record of service as a military commander inside and outside of Cuba” and “his fidelity to the leaders of the Revolution,” according to Granma, the Party’s daily newspaper. Espinosa fought in Cuba’s incursions in Africa and is thought to be close to Raúl Castro, who officially retired as the Party’s secretary last year but is still the country’s ultimate leader.
