Era of Castro reign comes to end in Cuba

HAVANA — Raul Castro, who took over from his brother Fidel 12 years ago and led Cuba through some of its biggest changes in decades, is expected to step down as president Thursday and hand power to someone outside the Castro dynasty for the first time since the Cuban revolution more than half a century ago.

During his two terms as president, Castro opened up his Communist country to a small but vital private sector and, perhaps most significantly, diplomatic relations with the United States. It was a notable departure from his brother’s agenda, yet it was possible only because he, too, was a Castro.

His handpicked successor, Miguel Diaz-Canel Bermudez, 57, is a Communist Party loyalist who was born a year after Fidel Castro claimed power in Cuba. His rise ushers in a new generation of Cubans whose only firsthand experience with the revolution has been its aftermath — the early era of plenty, the periods of economic privation after the demise of the Soviet Union, and the fleeting detente in recent years with the United States, its Cold War foe.

Officials started gathering here in Havana on Wednesday morning and put forward Diaz-Canel as the sole candidate to replace Castro, all but assuring his selection by the Communist Party.

Few U.S. officials — even those in the U.S. Embassy in Havana — have spent time with Diaz-Canel or can claim to have shared more than a few passing words. Even the most seasoned Cuba experts have only faint clues as to what he will do, how he will lead and how much latitude he will have to chart his own course.

Beyond that, Cuba’s next president will be hemmed in from multiple sides: Raul Castro is expected to remain head of the Communist Party, and the diplomatic opening with the United States has closed abruptly under President Donald Trump.

“There is nothing in his resume to suggest he is going to take risks,” Theodore Piccone, a Cuba scholar at the Brookings Institution, said of Diaz-Canel. “But that is the way the system works — anyone willing to take the risk before now would not be in line to be the president.”