The turnover has begun
From Progreso Semanal
HAVANA – Raúl Castro Ruz was ratified as president of the Councils of State and Ministers. But the news is that Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez was elected First Vice President, replacing José R. Machado Ventura, who will remain in the Council as one of five other vice presidents.
Homero Acosta, an outstanding jurist, was ratified by vote as Secretary of the Council of State.
Ratified as the other vice presidents were Inés María Chapman, Leopoldo Cintra, Abelardo Colomé, Guillermo García, Tania León, Álvaro López, Marino Murillo and Sergio Rodríguez.
The new members of the Council of State, which was renewed by 54.84 percent, number 17: Lester Alain Alemán, Teresa Amarelle, Yaramis Armenteros, Miguel Barnet, Yuniasky Crespo, Ileana Flores, Félix González, Carmen Rosa López, Martha del Carmen Mesa, Carlos Rafael Miranda, Miriam Nicado, Miladys Orraca, Bruno Rodríguez, Lyz Belkis Rosabal and Adel Yzquierdo.
With the promotion of Diaz-Canel Bermúdez, who is also First Vice President of the Council of Ministers, the generation of Cubans born after the 1959 triumph rises to high levels of government, which means a step forward in the process of generational turnover and the rejuvenation of the country’s top leaders.
DATA ABOUT DÍAZ-CANEL BERMÚDEZ
Miguel Díaz-Canel is a Cuban engineer and politician. He is a member of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the Cuban Communist Party. On Feb. 24, 2013, he was elected First Vice President of the Councils of State and Ministers.
He graduated as an Electronics Engineer in 1982, at which time he joined the Revolutionary Armed Forces until 1985. Beginning in April of that year, he began working as a professor at the Central University in Las Villas. In 1987, he began working professionally with the Communist Youths Union (UJC) in that university, although he continued to teach.
He performed an internationalist mission in Nicaragua. After his return in 1989, he held various posts in the UJC and rose to First Secretary of the Provincial Committee in Villa Clara.
In 1993, he was assigned to Party work and a year later was elected First Secretary of the Provincial Committee in his territory. In 2003, he was elected to a similar post in the province of Holguín. That same year, nominated by now-President Raúl Castro, he became a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of Cuba. At the time, Raúl stated:
“He has a high sense of collective work and exigency toward his subordinates and preaches by example on the need to excel oneself daily. He has shown a solid ideological firmness.”
In May 2009, he was appointed Minister of Higher Education, a post from which he was relieved on March 22, 2012, to assume a new position as Vice President of the Council of Ministers.
