Cuban revolutionary leader Fidel Castro on Tuesday welcomed his brother’s proposal to introduce a 10-year term limit for senior state officials.
His younger brother, Cuban President Raul Castro, opened the communist island’s first party congress in 14 years by proposing to bar top state officials from serving more than two consecutive five-year terms, in a move to guarantee the “systematic rejuvenation” of the government.
“Among the issues mentioned in the draft report to the sixth party congress, the issue of term limit was of major interest to me. I liked the idea,” Fidel said in an article published early on Tuesday.
The historic congress coincides with the 50th anniversary of the failed Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba by CIA-trained Cuban exiles on April 17, 1961. Among other things, congress participants are to approve the new make-up of the Communist Party’s ruling body, the Central Committee.
The 84-year-old revolutionary leader, who had served as the Central Committee’s first secretary since the party’s creation in 1965, said he asked his brother not to put his name on the list of proposed committee members.
“Raul knows that at present I will never agree to accept any party post. He referred to me as first secretary and commander-in-chief, but it is widely known that I handed over those powers after falling seriously ill,” Castro writes. “I told him that most important thing is not to put my name on that list.”
HAVANA, April 19 (RIA Novosti)