Raul Castro announces retirement in 2018

[NBCNews]

   Enrique De La Osa / REUTERSCuba's President Raul Castro (R) gestures while talking to the media at the Soviet Soldier monument in Havana February 22, 2013. By Marc Frank, ReutersHAVANA - Cuban leader Raul Castro announced on Sunday he would step  down from power after his second term as president ends in 2018, and the new  parliament named a 52-year-old rising star to become his first vice president  and most visible successor.

Castro, 81, 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 said.

Follow @NBCNewsWorld


In a surprise move,  the new parliament named as his first vice president Miguel Diaz-Canel, 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.

 

The new government will almost  certainly be the last headed up by the Castro brothers and their followers who  have ruled Cuba since they swept down from the mountains in the 1959 revolution.

Raul Castro starts his second term immediately, leaving him free to  retire in 2018, aged 86.

Former president Fidel Castro joined the  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.

Governments, Cuba watchers  and Cubans were keenly observing to see if any new, and younger, faces might  appear among the Council of State members, in particular its first vice  president and five vice presidents.

Their hopes were partially fulfilled  with Diaz-Canel's ascension. He replaces former first vice president, Jose  Machado Ventura, 82, who will continue on as one of five vice presidents.  Commander of the Revolution Ramiro Valdes, 80, and Gladys Bejerano, 66, the  comptroller general were also re-elected as vice presidents.

Two other  newcomers, Mercedes López Acea, 48, first secretary of the Havana communist  party, and Salvador Valdes Mesa, 64, head of the official labor federation, also  earned vice presidential slots.

Former vice president Esteban Lazo,  member of the political bureau of the Communist Party, 68, left his post upon  being named parliament president on Sunday, replacing Ricardo Alarcon, who  served for 20 years.

Six of the Council's top seven members sit on the  party's political bureau which is also lead by Castro.

The National  Assembly meets for just a few weeks each year and delegates its legislative  powers between sessions to the 31-member Council of State, which also functions  as the nation's executive through the Council of Ministers it appoints.

Eighty percent of the 612 deputies, who were elected in an uncontested  vote February 3 and with an average age under 50, were born after the  Revolution.

 

NBC News