Raul Castro to step down as Cuba’s president

Cuban President Raul Castro will step down in April 2018 straight afterhis successor is chosen by a top governing council, according to a voteThursday in the island state’s National Assembly.The decision means Castro, 86, will stay on two months longer than previously anticipated.“When the National Assembly in constituted (in April), my second andlast term as head of state and the government will be concluded, andCuba will have a new president,” Castro said when closing theparliamentary session on Thursday.He was to have stepped down in February under a system tied to the Communist-ruled country’s electoral calendar.But polls have been pushed back because of a damaging hurricane that hit the island in September.Cuba’s president is designated by a 31-member body called the Council ofState. The head of the council is automatically president of thecountry.But the Council of State first has to be selected by the NationalAssembly which has about 600 seats, a process that will now take placeon April 19, lawmakers voted in a session closed to international media.The new National Assembly will be elected at a date yet to be set.Castro, who officially became president in 2008 after serving as interimleader for two years, had already announced he would not be seeking anew mandate. His departure will mark the end of six decades of Castrorule.His late brother Fidel Castro, who died last year, governed the countryafter seizing power in 1959 at the head of a left-wing revolution.Raul Castro, however, is expected to remain leader of the island’sall-powerful Communist Party of Cuba until its next congress scheduledfor 2021 — when he will be aged 90. His first vice president, MiguelDiaz-Canel, 57, is seen as his likely successor.Whoever is designated president would have the difficult task ofconsolidating the Communist principles established by the Castros whilepursuing an economic transition plotted by Raul Castro.