Raul Castro has announced that he will step down as Cuba’s president in 2018 following a final five-year term. On Sunday, shortly after he made the announcement in a nationally broadcast speech, the new parliament named a 52-year-old rising star to become his first vice president and most visible successor. Miguel Diaz-Canel, a member of the political bureau, rose through the party ranks in the provinces to become the most visible possible successor to Castro. “I should clarify that, in my case, independent of the date on which the Constitution is perfected, this shall be my last term,” Castro said soon after the Cuban National Assembly elected him to a second five-year term in the opening session of the new parliament. Diaz-Canel would succeed Castro if he cannot serve his full term.
Castro brothers: The new government will almost certainly be the last headed up by the Castro brothers and their followers who have ruled Cuba since they swept to power in the 1959 revolution. Raul Castro starts his second term immediately, leaving him free to retire in 2018, aged 86. Former president Fidel Castro joined the meeting, in a rare public appearance. Since falling ill in 2006 and ceding the presidency to his brother, the elder Castro, 86, has given up official positions except as a deputy in the National Assembly. Raul Castro starts his second term immediately, leaving him free to retire in 2018, aged 86.
