Communist Party of Cuba chooses Miguel Diaz-Canel as leader

The Communist Party Congress of Cuba on April 19, 2021, chose Miguel Diaz-Canel to be its leader.

The latest decision has added this crucial post to the title of Cuban President which he assumed in 2018. In both cases, Mr. Miguel has replaced his mentor Raul Castro, 89. He has sealed a political dynasty that held power since the revolution of 1959.

In many ways, the new maximum leader of Cuba is nothing like those who governed the island for the past 6 decades. He was never a guerrilla fighter like other leaders and was a soldier for only a few years. He rose diligently and peacefully through the approved channels and isn’t named Castro.

Miguel Diaz-Canel, 61, is relatively younger in comparison to the members of the generation that had accompanied Fidel Castro in his battle against the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista and then stayed on in power decade after decade while cementing a political system of Soviet-style.

Rise of Miguel Diaz-Canel

• Miguel was born after the revolution in the West-Central city of Santa Clara in a Communist nation that was tightly aligned with the Soviet Union.

• He earned an engineering degree and dedicated himself to official politics.

• Miguel rose to a senior post in the Union of Young Communists and then through a series of bureaucratic positions in provinces of Cuba, where he gained a reputation of a pragmatic administrator with an informal manner in public dealing.

• A year after Raul Castro formally replaced Fidel Castro as the President of Cuba, in 2009, Miguel Diaz-Canel became the Minister of Higher Education.

• He rose to one of Cuba’s vice presidencies, in 2012, and soon thereafter was named the first Vice President of Cuba.

How a peaceful leader rose to a position in a Communist nation?

Even though a string of other promising young officials over the years were seen as heirs apparent to Castros, they only fall because they pretended too much power too quickly. Some were dabbed in questionable deals or some were caught in unguarded moments making indiscreet comments about the country’s leadership.

Mr. Miguel as President: What are the changes in Cuba?

In 2018, as Miguel took over from Mr. Raul as the President, he pushed the accelerator forward on some of the reforms that the Cuban Government had already begun to open the once-wholly-state-dominated economy. Cuba permitted more small private businesses and made life a bit easier for some small-scale entrepreneurs.

In recent months, the Cuban President has overseen the end of a system of dual currencies as well as opening to small businesses. The country has also finally allowed the widespread use of the internet.

However, there is still no opening at all to dissident political movements in Cuba, even if control-as only in recent years- had leaned toward surveillance, harassment, and short-term jail spells rather than sending people to jail for decades.