What Else Ends With Castro.

Byline: Jorge G. Castaneda (Castaneda is Global Distinguished Professor of Politics and Latin American Studies at New York University.)

As always in countries like Cuba, speculation is by definition idle. No one knows whether Fidel Castro is alive and well, dead or dying, recovering or permanently incapacitated. The biological outcome of the current drama in Havana is for now unfathomable. But the political conclusion seems increasingly clear--the age of Fidel Castro has come to an end.

The real question about Cuba's future is not Fidel's role in it, but what happens "after the wake," as Cuban-American author Marifeli Perez-Stable has aptly put it. The first mystery is whether Raul Castro will prove to be the reformer that many surmise he is. This would lead to the so-called Chinese option, in which Cuba would open up its economy, attempt to normalize relations with Washington (though not with Miami) and modernize its social policies. There is reason to believe that the younger Castro (so to speak: he is 75) could be a sort of Yuri Andropov --an authoritarian, modernizing, transitional figure.

The other question, directly linked to this first one, is whether Raul and the rest of the designated leadership can get away without holding authentic elections any time soon. They're certain to try: one can wonder if Fidel would have won the landslide support he always predicted had he put his charisma to a vote, but the question is almost absurd regarding his successors. Economics Vice President Carlos Lage and Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque could probably not get elected to their own offices. Pressure to hold elections immediately will undoubtedly mount in Miami, Washington, Europe and many countries in Latin America. At the same time, there is a case to be made for waiting: a Cuban soft landing, without bloodshed, revanchism and an exodus to Florida and the YucatAn, will not be easy to achieve, yet is in everyone's interest.

Indeed, Castro's absence from power will be felt not only in Cuba. He has exercised enormous influence on the left in Latin America since 1959. At that time the movement had largely given up any revolutionary ambitions. But after Fidel, Raul and Che Guevara entered Havana, the notion of revolution--socialist, nationalist, anti-imperialist, whatever--moved to top the left's agenda. Ever since, the Latin American left has been sundered by endless ...