Fidel Castro's departure as president of Cuba and commander in chief of its armed forces is no huge surprise following the illness that saw him step aside in July 2006. But it definitely marks the end of an era in which he held power for 49 years. Whether he is seen as fundamentally a nationalist or a communist, a revolutionary or a totalitarian despot, he has become a byword for his enduring resistance to the United States and doughty defence of Cuban sovereignty.
That reputation has conferred legitimacy at home, as has pride in the creation of egalitarian health and education services that put Cuba on a par with much more developed states. The accompanying economic backwardness and political repression are often blamed at home and abroad on the US blockade of the island and the resentful refusal of successive US presidents to engage with it politically. Those policies have backfired by continually giving Dr Castro and his leadership an excuse to delay and deflect reforms and suppress criticism so that the confrontation with the US could be more effectively prosecuted.
Dr Castro's sheer endurance has attracted growing support from other Latin American leaders in recent years. Venezuela, Mexico and Brazil have helped relax the US economic embargo, while buoyant world commodity prices have boosted its exports, including from China, and a tourist boom from Europe its foreign currency revenues. As a result there had been some limited extra scope for relaxing internal human rights repressions and harsh regulations against small private business. But the efforts by the European Union and other international interlocutors to secure the release of the 75 liberal and left-wing dissidents jailed in 2003 have come to nothing.
Cuba is not a typical Stalinist state. Its communist party has greater freedoms at individual membership level than elsewhere. Popular participation in last month's elections of 614 deputies to the national assembly which will elect Dr Castro's successor on Sunday made it a genuine contest among the exclusively communist candidates on offer. There is little sign that the Cuban public is demanding wholesale change in the regime; rather will the new leadership be judged by its willingness to encourage reforms capable of improving everyday life. Their ability to do this will depend especially on external conditions. They can hardly expect much from the outgoing Bush administration, but the timing of this announcement suggests better relations are expected with a new US president.
Dr Castro says he will continue to write newspaper articles, suggesting he will be an ideological mentor for new leaders, perhaps from the "middle generation" he mentioned in Granma. His brother Raúl who has stood in for him for 18 months has a reputation as a pragmatic innovator influenced by China. In its offer to engage Cuba politically the EU must put human rights at the top of the agenda if it is to make a convincing argument for change.