Castro re-elected to sixth term as Cuban president
HAVANA (AP) – President Fidel Castro, the world’s longest ruling head of government, was elected yesterday by the newly chosen parliament to a sixth term as Cuba’s Maximum Leader.
“I promise that I will be with you, if you so wish, for as long as I feel that I can be useful – and if it is not decided by nature before,” the 76-year-old Castro said in a rare reference to his advancing age and mortality. “Not a minute less and not a second more.
“Now I understand that it was not my destiny to rest at the end of my life,” added Castro, who keeps a busy schedule that wear out a much younger man.
Castro, now in power for 44 years, holds the title of President of the Council of State, this communist-run island’s supreme governing body. The sole presidential candidate in Thursday’s vote, Castro wore a dark suit and tie rather than his typical olive green military uniform.
The morning session opened with certification of the new parliament deputies by the president of the National Election Council, who read aloud the name of each of the 609 new National Assembly members.
Deputies later re-elected Ricardo Alarcon to his third five-year term as speaker of the parliament. Alarcon, a former foreign minister and ambassador to the United Nations, is Castro’s point man on Cuba-US relations.
Castro was elected by National Assembly deputies to his fifth presidential term five years ago, the same day the current parliament met for the first time after being chosen in general elections in 1998.
Castro has been Cuba’s unchallenged leader since 1959, though he was elected president only in 1976.