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Raúl Castro to step down as Cuban president in 2018 Raúl Castro to step down as Cuban president in 2018
(about 4 hours later)
Cuban leader Raúl Castro announced on Sunday he would step down from power after his second term as president ends in 2018. Raúl Castro has announced that he will step down as Cuba's president in 2018, putting a date on the end of the Castro era. He tapped rising star Miguel Díaz-Canel as his top lieutenant and potential successor.
Castro made the announcement in a nationally broadcast speech shortly after the Cuban National Assembly elected him to a second five-year term in the opening session of the new parliament. "This will be my last term," Castro, 81, said on Sunday, shortly after the National Assembly elected him to a second five-year term of office.
In a surprise move, the new parliament named a rising young star as his first vice president, Miguel Diaz-Canel, 52, a member of the political bureau who rose through the party ranks in the provinces to become the most visible possible successor to Castro. Diaz-Canel would succeed Castro if he cannot serve his full term. Castro also said he hopes to establish two-term limits and age caps for political offices including the presidency, though he did not specify an age.
Castro says the country has reached a "transcendent" moment in which it is ready to start transferring responsibility and power to a younger generation. As the new first vice president of the ruling Council of State, the 52-year-old Diaz-Canel is now a heartbeat from the presidency and has risen higher than any other Cuban official who didn't directly participate in the 1959 revolution.
Diaz-Canel's appointments marks the first time someone who did not directly participate in the 1959 Cuban revolution assumed such an important role. In his 35-minute speech, Castro hinted at other changes to the constitution, some so dramatic that they will have to be ratified by the Cuban people in a referendum. But he scotched any idea that the country would soon abandon socialism, saying he had not assumed the presidency in order to destroy Cuba's system.
Raul Castro, 81, who officially replaced his ailing brother as president in 2008, has repeatedly called for senior leaders to hold office for no more than two five-year terms. "I was not chosen to be president to restore capitalism to Cuba," he said. "I was elected to defend, maintain and continue to perfect socialism, not destroy it."
He starts his second term immediately. In 2018, Castro will be 86. Cuba is at a moment of "historic transcendence," Castro told lawmakers
/>in speaking of his decision to name Diaz-Canel to the No. 2 job, replacing the 81-year-old Jose Ramon Machado Ventura, who fought with the Castros.
Castro praised Machado Ventura and another ageing revolutionary for offering to leave their positions so that younger leaders could move up.
Their selflessness is "a concrete demonstration of their genuine revolutionary fibre ... That is the essence of the founding generation of this revolution."
Castro said that Diaz-Canel's promotion "represents a definitive step in the configuration of the future leadership of the nation through
the gradual and orderly transfer of key roles to new generations."
On the streets of Havana, where people often express a jaded scepticism of all things political, there was genuine excitement.
"This is the start of a new era," said Roberto Delgado, a 68-year-old retiree walking down a street in the leafy Miramar neighborhood. "It will undoubtedly be a complicated and difficult process, but something important happened today."
"I'm mesmerised," added Regla Blanco, 48. "You thought that with all
these old men, it would never end. I am very satisfied with what Raul
said. He is keeping his promise."
Since taking over from Fidel in 2006, Castro has instituted economic and social changes, expanding private enterprise,legalising a real estate market and relaxing hated travel restrictions.
Still, the country remains ruled by the Communist party and any opposition to it lacks legal recognition.
Castro has mentioned term limits before, but he has never said specifically when he would step down, and the concept has yet to be codified into Cuban law.
If he keeps his word, Castro will leave office no later than 2018. The
promise of a change at the top could have deep significance for
US-Cuba ties. The wording of Washington's 51-year economic embargo
on the island specifies that it cannot be lifted while a Castro is in
charge.
In Florida, home to hundreds of thousands of Cuban exiles, some were sceptical that Castro's eventual retirement would change much. "First we have to see if he lives another five years, and after we have to see what happens," said Raul Lopez Mola, an 81-year-old who abandoned Cuba in 1966 for a new life in Miami. "No one can predict what will happen in five years. For me, I don't think it has great importance."
"It would be more meaningful if Fidel Castro died," Lopez Mola added. Fidel Castro is 86 and retired, and has appeared increasingly frail in recent months. He made a surprise appearance at Sunday's gathering, receiving a thunderous ovation from lawmakers. Some analysts have speculated that the Castros would push a younger member of their family into a top job, but there was no hint of that on Sunday.