Status: 04/20/2023 00:22
Cuba’s parliament re-elected Miguel Díaz-Canel as president. The 62-year-old will remain in office for five more years. The outcome was already agreed before the election.
Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel will remain in office for another five years. In the constituent session of the new National Assembly, the 62-year-old was confirmed for another term.
The first head of state of the socialist Caribbean state after the Castro era received 97.66 percent of the votes in the National Assembly, according to the party newspaper “Granma” – he received 459 out of 460 valid votes.
The first non-Castro president since 1959
In 2018, Díaz-Canel became the first ruler after the 1959 revolution whose name was not Castro to become the head of state. His predecessor, the 91-year-old Raúl Castro, whose right-hand man he was, had relinquished power. In 2021, Díaz-Canel also took over from Castro as first secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party – the only legal party in the island nation.
According to Cuba’s current constitution, which went into effect in 2019, a president cannot serve more than two terms in a row – so Díaz-Canel is expected to end in 2028.
Raúl Castro’s brother Fidel Castro, who died in 2016, ruled the country for almost 50 years after the revolution. The National Assembly, Cuba’s only parliamentary chamber, was elected in March.
Country experiences supply shortages and inflation
In the election, 470 candidates, previously checked by the electoral commission, ran for as many parliamentary seats and without opposition challengers. All received the necessary majority of votes – Raúl Castro also remained a member of parliament. The National Assembly elects the President and Vice-President from among its ranks – the result of the election was thus clear.
Díaz-Canel’s biggest challenges are high inflation and shortages of food, medicine and electricity, as well as United States sanctions. Recently, numerous Cubans had tried to emigrate to the USA or other countries.