Cuba's National Assembly nominates Miguel Diaz-Canel to succeed Raul Castro as president

For the first time in the lives of most Cubans, a man not named Castro is set to take over the leadership of the Communist-run island nation.

Cuba's National Assembly on Wednesday April 18,2018 has nominated Cuban First Vice President Miguel Diaz-Canel(57) to be the unopposed candidate to replace Raul Castro as the head of the Cuban government.

 

Castro embraced Diaz-Canel -- who wasn't even born when Fidel Castro led his revolution in 1959 -- during the session Wednesday April 18,2018, all but sealing his status as the island's next president.

 

Fidel Castro had long said he expected to die while still in office, but after a mystery illness and botched intestinal surgery in 2008, he was forced to step down. He died in 2016.

 

His younger brother Raul Castro replaced him as head of state, the Cuban Communist Party and the island's military, promising to make their revolution "prosperous and sustainable."

 

For years, many Cubans speculated that Raul Castro's daughter Mariela -- a member of the National Assembly and advocate for gay and transgender rights -- or his son, Alejandro -- a colonel in Cuban counterintelligence who represented the island in secret talks with the United States -- would be the next Castros to take power.

 

Instead, Cuba's first vice president is the apparent successor to Raul Castro: the 57-year-old technocrat Díaz-Canel, who has promised to hew closely to the course set by the Castro brothers

 

Before becoming the heir apparent to Raul Castro, when Díaz-Canel was still climbing his way up the ranks of the Communist Party hierarchy in the island's provinces, he earned a nickname that stuck with him: "Día y Noche" or Day and Night.

 

The moniker came from low-level government employees who found out the hard way that at any hour Diaz-Canel could show up unannounced to inspect whether workers were actually on the job and not pilfering supplies or taking a nap. 

 

That fastidiousness and willingness to work around the clock may be key assets when Diaz-Canel becomes the next president of the Communist-run island after Raul Castro steps down.