Fidel Castro secretly cedes power to Elian Gonzalez

Though most news outlets are reporting that Cuban President Fidel Castro has ceded power to his brother Raul due to medical concerns, this weblog has confirmed that the official succession account is a mere cover story. The truth is far more incredible: Castro has actually ceded his political authority to Elián Gonzalez, the Cuban child rescued from the sea following an ill-fated attempt to enter the United States, and who subsequently became the center of a bitter immigration and custody battle.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, Cuban officials disclosed that Castro has been increasingly consumed by thoughts of mortality accompanying health complications, and has confided to his brother that the Gonzalez child has appeared to him in recent dreams, floating upon ocean waters and borne by dolphins. These dreams may have been influenced by accounts that Elián is considered by some to be a personification of an Afro-Cuban deity named Eleggua, and that the child is viewed by some as a conflation of Moses and the Messiah. Convinced that young Elián was destined to succeed him, Castro sought out the "El Nino de los Delfines" - currently an ordinary schoolchild - and offered him the seat of power in Havana. According to this account, Raul will serve as a figurehead until the Gonzalez child comes of age.

This news was met with mixed reactions by the Cuban exile community in Miami. Though many here have viewed the news of Castro's recent ill health as a hopeful sign of change, others worry that the Cuban government is using Elián to further its own cynical political ends. Enrique Ferrer, an exile who made regular appearances at the Miami home in which Elián stayed, said that the ascension of the Gonzalez child represents a pivotal moment in history:

"If Elián were just a child, Fidel would not have bothered with him," said Ferrar. "Fidel knows he is divine, and wants to destroy him...Elián's life is not his own; its God's. He will either become the future leader of the Cuban exile community, the one whose salvation ensured the death of Castro, or he will be...reprogrammed and ensure the survival of Cuban communism."

The Bush administration has declined to comment on the future of American relations with a Cuba governed by a President Elián.

(Satire drawn on "The Elián Gonzalez 'Religious Movement'" at ReligiousTolerance.org. Cross-posted.)