Cuba proposes Miguel Diaz-Canel to succeed Raul Castro as president

The country proposed Miguel Diaz-Canel as sole candidate to replace Raul Castro as president; the result will be formally announced on Thursday

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Miguel Diaz-Canel queues at a polling station in Santa Clara, Cuba, during an election to ratify a new National Assembly on March 11. Photo: AFP

Published: 1:09am, 19 Apr 2018Updated: 1:26am, 19 Apr 2018

Cuba on Wednesday proposed First Vice-President Miguel Diaz-Canel as sole candidate to replace Raul Castro as president, which will make him the island’s first non-Castro leader since the 1959 revolution.

The proposal is subject to a vote later in the day by the National Assembly and the result will be formally announced on Thursday. Such votes are usually unanimously or nearly unanimously ratified.

The day-long process of selecting Castro’s successor was the centrepiece of an effort to ensure that Cuba’s single-party system outlasts the ageing revolutionaries who created it.

Cuban President Raul Castro, right, and First Vice-President Miguel Diaz Canel attend the May Day parade at Revolution Square in Havana in 2016. Photo: AFP

Diaz-Canel, 57, has long been seen as the overwhelming favourite to replace Castro, and a series of high-profile appearances on state-run television in recent days have done nothing to change that.

Castro, 86, entered the National Assembly chamber just after 9am accompanied by a broadly smiling Diaz-Canel. The 605 assembly members were sworn in, then voted for the president and vice-president of the legislative body itself.