The formal end of Fidel's reign in Cuba isn't much of a surprise. He has been ill for several years and had been staying well out of sight, running things from behind the scene, behind the apparent leadership of his younger brother, Raul.
... Just days before the national assembly is to meet to select a new head of state, Mr. Castro resigned permanently in a letter to the nation and signaled his willingness to let a younger generation assume power. He said his failing health made it impossible to return as president.
“I will not aspire to neither will I accept — I repeat I will not aspire to neither will I accept — the position of President of the Council of State and Commander in chief,” he wrote.
Raul will likely assume those powers. What remains to be seen is the extent to which the rest of the government is changed.
Pervaez Musharraf has lost the election and lost big time, according to the other big story on the front page of the New York Times. That's more of a surprise. Musharraf was expected to insure his continuation as president through repression and manipulation of the election system.
After fears that violence and vote rigging would mar the polling, international election observers described the victory for the opposition Pakistan Peoples Party and the Pakistan Muslim League-N as an accurate reflection of the voting.
Mr. Musharraf was “accepting of the reality of the election,” Senator John Kerry, Democrat of Massachusetts, said in Islamabad, the capital, after he and two other American senators met with Mr. Musharraf.
The leader of the pro-Musharraf party, Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain, a usually uncompromising politician, also said his party would be in the opposition.
There are plenty more strong-arm leaders, ranging from stupid to vicious, who have yet to "accept the reality of the election." Two of the more powerful (and vicious) are expected to be voted out of Washington and into a position where they're not much more than embarrassments to our history. We'll see how this plays out, but many Americans will be hoping the changes in the political climate in Pakistan and Cuba will reach us later this year. In November. With any luck.
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