LOYALIST TO BE FIRST NON-CASTRO TO LEAD MODERN CUBA

HAVANA Cuba on Wednesday selected 57-year-old First Vice-President Miguel Mario Diaz-Canel Bermudez as sole candidate to succeed Raul Castro as president of Cuba, the centrepiece of an effort to ensure the country’s single-party system outlasts the aging revolutionaries who created it.

The virtually certain unanimous approval of the National Assembly will install someone from outside the Castro family in the country’s highest government office for the first time in nearly six decades.

The 86-year-old Castro will remain head of the Communist Party, designated by the constitution as “the superior guiding force of society and the state.”

As a result, Castro is almost certain to remain the most powerful person in Cuba for the time being.

Most Cubans know their first vicepresident as an unremarkable speaker who initially assumed a public profile so low it was virtually nonexistent. Until March, Diaz-Canel had said nothing to the Cuban people about the type of president he would be.

ISMAEL FRANCISCO / WWW.CUBADEBATE.CU / AFP / GETTY IMAGES Cuban President Raul Castro, left, speaks with First Vice-President Miguel Diaz-Canel in this July 2016 file photo. The country’s National Assembly named Diaz-Canel as the sole candidate for the presidency Wednesday.