US President George W. Bush yesterday said he hoped the retirement of Cuban leader Fidel Castro would be the beginning of democratic transition in Cuba.

"I believe that the change from Fidel Castro ought to begin a period of a democratic transition," Mr Bush said at a news conference in Rwanda during a five-country African trip.

Mr Bush said the first step should be to free political prisoners, and the international community should work with Cubans to start building institutions necessary for democracy.

"Eventually this transition ought to lead to free and fair elections, and I mean free and I mean fair," Mr Bush said. "Not these kind of staged elections that the Castro brothers try to foist off as being true democracy," he said.

"And we're going to help. The US will help the people of Cuba realise the blessings of liberty," Mr Bush said.

Washington's relations with Cuba have been hostile since soon after Castro came to power in 1959 and began steering the island on a course that aligned it with the Soviet Union during the Cold War.

The US has maintained an economic embargo on Cuba for more than four decades to try to isolate Mr Castro.

The Bush administration greeted Castro's illness and his provisional hand-over of power in the summer of 2006 coolly, since it did not expect much change to the one-party system under his brother, Raul Castro.