When national leaders "live on"

From Newsweek:

Thursday was the 83rd birthday of Fidel Castro, Cuba’s comandante en jefe, who, upon “retiring” as the country’s leader last year, passed control of the government on to his brother. In that way he remains the godfather of Cuban politics. Like Castro, plenty of other leaders-despite old age, term limits, or even death-continue through their successors to shape their country’s politics after they’ve left office, subverting the democratic process.

So far, Raúl has mostly followed his brother’s policies. Although he has pushed for economic reform and his government has adopted some more modern management practices, he shows little sign of straying from the longstanding communist model. Earlier this month, responding to an olive branch from Washington, he insisted that Cuba’s system would not change. He even said that Cuba will remain a socialist country after the death of its revolutionary leaders. “I was elected to defend, maintain, and continue perfecting socialism, not to destroy it,” he told the Cuban National Assembly.

Yet most analysts seem to have finally accepted the very opposite conclusion: the Cuban socialist system is not based simply on the person of Fidel Castro. He may remain influential behind the scenes, but the transition of power from Fidel to Raúl was smooth and the continuity of the socialist system seems certain beyond his death and comfortable without him active within it. This is a strong indication that it is not Fidel that shapes the country’s politics anymore, whether he remains the face of the revolution or not.