Does Fidel Castro have a designated successor or is there an established mechanism within the Cuban Government and Communist Party to choose Fidel Castro’s successor?
Will the Sandanistas ever return to power again in Nicaragua, and will Venezueala form an alliance with Cuba?
Castro’s brother Raoul will succed him if he outlives Fidel.
After what I expect would be a short reign by R. Castro, all bets are off.
Elian Gonzalez!
(a) Next in line is brother Raúl. He ain’t no spring chicken either and he’s got none of big bro’s personality, but he does command the Army which counts for something.The National Congress and the Communist Party central committee do have provisions (in the Constitution and Party Rules, respectively) for selecting successors. But the party apparat is very efficient so far at preventing any single person from achieving “star” status, which keeps their jobs safe today but will come back to bite them later when effective transitional leadership is needed.
(b) Not the way we knew them as a “revolutionary movement”, but as a populist leftist party, they are competitive IF the center-right government coalition weakens (and they figure out they need to dump Daniel Ortega as candidate). There have been splits and reunions and internal ups-and-downs and infighting and changes of direction aplenty in the last 15 years.
(c) On what else? They already have either official or de-facto cooperation in most key areas where their interests coincide (besides promulgating the theory that the USA is the source of all that ails Latin America) and neither has a need to tie itself to the other on those policies where they don’t. In any case it’s Cuba that would want to seek out favor with Venezuela anyway, these days. Chavez’s brand of populist-nationalist anti-establishment “revolution” is a much easier sell than the communists’ ever was, AND he’s got oil and money and the cachet of having been freely elected twice.