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Officials Take First Step To Keep Castro In Office

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Dec 2, 2007 8:44 pm US/Eastern

Officials Take First Step To Keep Castro In Office

 CBS News Interactive: Fidel Castro And Cuba

HAVANA, Cuba (CBS) ― The City council of Santiago, Cuba has taken the first step to ensure that Fidel Castro remains the island's president.

Sunday, they nominated him for a seat on the parliament, a position the ailing 81-year old leader must hold if he wants to remain Cuba's president after the national elections in January.

Castro still heads Cuba's supreme governing body, the Council of State. But he has not been seen in public since emergency intestinal surgery forced him to cede power to a provisional government run by his younger brother Raul in July 2006.

If Castro agrees to be a candidate and is re-elected during national elections January 20th, Castro will remain in the running for another term as Council of State president.

Cuba elects National Assembly members every five years. Several weeks after a new slate of members is chosen, parliament convenes to choose the Council of State. Castro has held the council's presidency since it was created in 1976 and has been Cuba's unchallenged leader since leading a successful revolution 1959.

The 76-year-old Raul Castro is currently the council's first vice president, though he has run Cuba's government since his brother ceded power last year.

(© 2009 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)

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