Havana - Cubans on Wednesday were waiting to see what changes will occur in their communist hold-out state following the momentous announcement the day before by Fidel Castro that he was giving up his half-century grip on power.
The rest of the world, too, was caught between hope that democracy would seep in - expressed most vocally by Cuba's arch-foe the United States - and expectations that the island's new leader would steadfastly uphold Castro's revolution.
The first hint of Cuba's future direction will come on Sunday, when the island's congress officially selects the new president.
Castro, 81 and ailing, wrote on Tuesday in the Cuban Communist Party organ, Granma, that he would not be staying on in the post.
"I neither will aspire to, nor will I accept, the position of president of the Council of State and commander-in-chief," he said.
The announcement was a bombshell, though not unexpected.
Castro has not been seen in public, beyond some photos and television images, since undergoing July 2006 surgery for intestinal bleeding. Pictures showing a dramatic weight loss and an absence of his beloved cigars pointed to the seriousness of his illness.
Raul Castro, the leader's 76-year-old brother, has been acting president during Castro's convalescence.
It has been widely expected that Raul would succeed Fidel Castro, and he has spent his years in his sibling's shadow consolidating control over Cuba's armed forces as defense chief and first vice-president.
He has also promised reforms that ordinary Cubans hope will alleviate their daily ordeal of food rationing and restrictions on travel and information.
But Raul Castro has none of Fidel's booming charisma, and he was not openly annointed in the retiring leader's resignation statement.
Instead, Fidel Castro spoke of a "middle generation" that could take up the torch -- taken by some to mean a junior vice president, Carlos Lage, 56, or Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque, 42.
Castro himself vowed to stay on from the sidelines, writing as a statesman his views on Cuba's politics and society.
"Fidel has not given up, he has not abandoned us, it is only because of his physical limitations" that he is ceding the presidency, Granma said in an editorial Wednesday.
It acknowledged the "profound impact" Castro's exit is having, but asserted that communist party "unity and consensus" would prevail.
The United States' first reaction to the news was to say that its 50-year-old embargo against the communist isle would remain in place.
President George W. Bush - the 10th US president to have faced off against Castro - said he hoped Cuba would now begin a "democratic transition" that would start with the release of political prisoners and culminate with free and fair elections.
"And I mean free, and I mean fair - not these kinds of staged elections that the Castro brothers tried to foist off as being true democracy," he said.
Leading US newspapers on Wednesday lamented Castro's legacy, but claimed the US administration was unprepared for what comes next.
The Wall Street Journal calling Castro an economic incompetent as well as a ruthless oppressor.
The Washington Post agreed. "Castro retires without being held accountable for turning one of Latin America's most developed economies into a bankrupt sugar plantation," it said.
"He escapes accountability, too, for killing hundreds of political opponents and imprisoning thousands more; or sending Cuban soldiers to kill and die in wars between African tyrants; and for arming and training violent Latin American guerrillas," it said.
European nations said they would wait and see what Castro's resignation brings.
"If the signs indicate an evolution of the Cuban regime toward democracy, we will encourage them and we will support them. For the moment, I haven't seen any," French Prime Minister Francois Fillon said.
Within Latin America, several countries with leftist governments expressed support for Castro's ideology continuing.
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, Castro's ideological heir apparent, said the revolution started by his Cuban mentor was bigger than the man who led it.
"The Cuban revolution does not depend on one person, on a juncture, nor on circumstance," he said late Tuesday as he opened a new hospital.
"Fidel is not giving up or abandoning anything - he is occupying the post that he has to fill in the Cuban revolution and the Latin American revolution," he said.
Cuban dissidents expressed a mix of hope and skepticism that Cuba would now set itself on the path of reform.
"I think that in a few months we will see a suspension of repression against dissidence," one of them, Dimas Castellano, an editor of the banned online opposition journal Consenso desde Cuba, told AFP.
But human rights activist Elizardo Sanchez called Castro's announcement "more headline than real story" and predicted "changes that leave everything the same."
Castro took power in 1959, when his guerrillas ousted dictator Fulgencio Batista.
Famed for his rumpled olive fatigues, scraggly beard and cigars, Castro dodged everything his enemies in Washington could throw at him, including assassination plots and the failed US-backed Bay of Pigs invasion bid.
During his tenure, the world came to the brink of nuclear war in the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, when the Soviet Union sought to position nuclear-tipped rockets on the island, just 144 kilometers from Florida. - Sapa-AFP