New Cuban president elected

MIGUEL Diaz-Canel was elected as Cuba’s new president yesterday, as the successor of Raul Castro, who concluded two consecutive five-year terms in office.

After handing over the presidency to his successor, Castro, 86, remains as a lawmaker in the parliament and as the first secretary of the Central Committee of the ruling Communist Party of Cuba.

The election of Diaz-Canel indicates a historic transfer of power to a younger generation of Cuban leadership from the Castro brothers. Fidel Castro led a socialist revolution to victory in 1959, after which he was leader of the country for nearly half a century. The late revolutionary handed over power to his younger brother Raul in 2006 as his deteriorating health rendered him incapable of fulfilling his leadership duties.

Emerging from the grassroots, Diaz-Canel has, as the younger Castro once said, demonstrated “capacity” and a “solid ideological firmness.”

Xi’s message

Chinese President Xi Jinping congratulated Miguel DiazCanel on his election as the new Cuban president in a message yesterday. Xi said that China and Cuba are good comrades, good friends and good partners that sincerely trust each other and share the same fate, adding that the two peoples have cultivated deep friendship through long and hard struggles, serving as a strong force to promote the development of bilateral ties.

In a separate message to Raul Castro, Xi, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, said he is ready to maintain close communications with Castro to push forward China-Cuba ties.