President to quit after second term
CUBAN President Raul Castro has announced he will step down after his second term ends in 2018.
“This will be my last term,” Mr Castro, 81, said shortly after the National Assembly elected him to a second five-year tenure.
In a surprise move, the new parliament also named Miguel Diaz-Canel as first vice president, meaning he would take over if Castro cannot serve his full term.
Mr Diaz-Canel, 52, is a member of the political bureau who rose through the Communist Party ranks to become the most visible successor to Mr Castro.
Former President Fidel Castro joined Sunday’s National Assembly 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.
The new government will almost certainly be the last headed up by the Castro brothers and their generation of leaders who have ruled Cuba since they swept down from the mountains in the 1959 revolution.
Cubans and foreign governments were keenly watching whether any new faces appeared among the Council of State members.
Their hopes we r e partially fulfilled with Mr Diaz-Canel’s ascension.
He replaces former first vice-president, Jose Machado Ventura, 82, who will continue as one of five vice-presidents.