Cuba's President Raul Castro speaks from his car

Cuba's President Raul Castro, right, speaks to students from his car after visiting the Latin American School of Medicine in Havana, Wednesday, Jan. 21, 2009.

Fidel Castro said Thursday he doubts he'll make it to the end of Barack Obama's four-year term and instructed Cuban officials to start making their decisions without taking him into account.

In an online column titled "Reflections of Comrade Fidel," the 82-year-old Cuban leader suggested his days are numbered, saying Cuban officials "shouldn't feel bound by my occasional Reflections, my state of health or my death."

"I have had the rare privilege of observing events over such a long time. I receive information and meditate calmly on those events," he wrote. "I expect I won't enjoy that privilege in four years, when Obama's first presidential term has ended."

He didn't elaborate, but the lines had the ring of a farewell, and Castro suggested he was on his way out.

"I have reduced the Reflections as I had planned this year, so I won't interfere or get in the way of the (Communist) Party or government comrades in the constant decisions they must make," he wrote.

Castro stepped down in July 2006 to undergo emergency surgery and hasn't been seen in public since. He turned over the presidency to his younger brother Raul in February after nearly a half-century as Cuba's supreme leader, but his periodic essays have continued to carry weight.

They are diligently read in full at the top of midday and nightly radio and television newscasts before any other national or international story. At times, they have even appeared to contradict the words of his brother, the president, prompting speculation over who is really in charge.

Thursday's essay came out on a government Web site shortly before the nightly news. Newscasters did not mention it, instead reading a column Castro had released on Wednesday.