Fidel Castro “retiring” as Cuba’s dictator in chief isn’t the end of the story. Nothing has changed, and chances are better than even that they won’t in the immediate future.

Next up is the official naming of the successor.

Cuba’s rubber-stamp National Assembly will meet on Sunday to name retiring Cuban leader Fidel Castro’s successor, and few people are placing bets on anyone other than his brother Raul Castro.

[...]

The National Assembly’s 614 legislative deputies, elected last month, will convene on Sunday morning to approve a list of the 31 members of the Council of State, Cuba’s top executive body headed by the president or head of state, a first vice president and five more second-tier vice presidents.

In theory, the presidency could go to a younger leader, such as Vice President Carlos Lage, the architect of limited reforms that opened Cuba to foreign investment and tourism and allowed small private entrepreneurs to emerge in the 1990s crisis following the collapse of the Soviet Union.

But Cuba watchers see that as too bold a move and expect Lage, 56, to become deputy leader of the country as first vice president with a hands-on role in day-to-day governing.

I have no doubt that this is probably the way things will play out. However, Scott Ott has insider information on a (slightly) different direction that could be taken.

As Cuban President Fidel Castro announced today he would end his half-century of totalitarian rule, sources close to Senators Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama tried to tamp down speculation that they were on “the short list” of potential replacements for the ailing Communist dictator.

[...]

“A Clinton-Obama ticket,” said one unnamed Cuba scholar, “combines the power and the glory that was Fidel Castro, with the unshakable commitment to collectivism, controlled economies, and virulent resistance to the United States as a superpower.”

Heh.