Cubans expect few big changes in post-Castro life

By Esteban Israel

HAVANA (Reuters) - As the world watches and waits for signs of change in a Cuba without Fidel Castro at the helm, few Cubans expect life to be different after a new president is named on Sunday.

Castro, 81, announced his retirement this week after nearly five decades of rule, citing the poor health that led him to provisionally hand power to his brother Raul in July 2006.

Cuba's rubber-stamp National Assembly is expected to name Raul Castro as president, ending the rule of the charismatic revolutionary who turned Cuba into a one-party state and Soviet ally on the doorstep of the United States.

Anti-Castro exiles and U.S. President George W. Bush have led international calls for democratic reform on the island since the announcement. But in the streets of the capital Havana, the mood is more of indifference than expectation.

"It's been the same for 50 years (and) there aren't going to be changes. It's possible that they'll be some measures because Raul is different to Fidel, but it won't be much," said Adela, 48, a vet, who asked not to give her full name.

"There's a lot of disillusion, a lot of sadness. The people don't care," she added.

Since announcing he would step down, Castro has hit back at the foreign calls for change.

Castro said in a newspaper article that reactions to his retirement, including calls for "liberty" in Cuba, forced him to "open fire" again on his ideological enemies.