AP News, April 30th, 2007
Communist Cuba geared up Monday for its traditional May Day march featuring hundreds of thousands of workers, but an appearance by recovering leader Fidel Castro at the event was uncertain.
The 80-year-old Castro for decades has attended the annual International Workers' Day march, but there was no official word whether the leader would be well enough to make it on Tuesday.
"I can neither confirm nor deny," National Assembly President Alarcon told reporters who asked him Monday if Castro would attend the parade. "I don't have the slightest idea."
On Sunday, one Castro's main allies, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, said the Cuban leader is once again "in charge" but declined to comment on statements by Bolivia's leftist leader that Castro could appear in public on May 1.
The Communist Party newspaper Granma declared that marchers at the Tuesday event in Havana's Plaza of the Revolution will be "united and strong with the revolution and the party, with Fidel and Raul" Castro.
Smaller marches will be held simultaneously in other cities around the island, with the government expecting several million of the nation's 11 million people to participate.
Castro has not appeared in public in the nine months since announcing he underwent emergency intestinal surgery and temporarily ceded his duties to his 75-year-old brother Raul, the defense minister.
The elder Castro has appeared only occasionally in government photographs and videos, appearing stronger and more robust in more recent images.
He met separately in recent weeks with Colombian Nobel laureate Gabriel Garcia Marquez and a top Chinese Communist Party leader and has penned three editorials.
