Cuba's next president: Who is Miguel Díaz-Canel?

Alan Gomez | USA TODAY

Cuba is set to undergo a historic shift on Thursday, elevating a relatively unknown Communist Party official, Miguel Díaz-Canel, to replace retiring President Raúl Castro.

The National Assembly selected First Vice President Díaz-Canel on Wednesday as the sole candidate to succeed Castro. The official handover of power expected on Thursday is also the anniversary of the U.S.-backed Bay of Pigs invasion defeated by Cuban forces in 1961.

Little is known about Díaz-Canel, 57, who will lead the communist nation that has been ruled for nearly 60 years by Raúl Castro and his brother Fidel. State-run newspapers in Cuba have shared only snippets of his travels inside the country and abroad.

The mystery surrounding Díaz-Canel is by design, said Christopher Sabatini, a lecturer of international relations and policy at Columbia University who has studied Cuba. He said the Cuban regime has carefully presented a profile of a man who is a staunch communist but in touch with Cuba's younger generation as it transitions away from Castro's contemporaries.

"He likes the Rolling Stones. He likes The Beatles. He has an iPad. We hear that repeated over and over," Sabatini said. "That to me smacks of a well-managed (public relations) campaign."

Díaz-Canel will carry the weight of the presidency as relations with the United States become more antagonistic and Cuba's main economic lifeline, Venezuela, deteriorates.

Here are four things known about Cuba's future president:

Communist Party leader

After graduating from college in the central city of Santa Clara, Díaz-Canel served his three years of obligatory military service and jumped right into party politics.

In 1987, he joined the Young Communists' Union and rose through the ranks. By 1994, he was named first party secretary in Villa Clara province. Neighbors say he didn't move to the larger homes provided by the government to people in that position.

"He didn't even fix up his house to live more comfortably," neighbor Roberto Suarez Tagle, 78, told the Associated Press. "He always found out about the real problems that people had."

In 2003, he was named first secretary of the more populous province of Holguin in eastern Cuba and was named to the Communist Party's Politburo, one of its highest decision-making bodies.

In 2013, Castro named Díaz-Canel first vice president of the Council of State, placing him in line to replace Castro.

Minister of education

Díaz-Canel maintained a separate career track throughout his time in politics. After finishing his military service, he was an engineering professor at the University of Santa Clara. Years later, he was named Cuba's minister of education.

Cuban media fawned over his approach to that role, boasting that he was one of the first high-ranking government officials to bring a laptop to government meetings and push for more technology in Cuba's underfunded classrooms.

The state-run newspaper Granma routinely publishes stories of Díaz-Canel's visits to schools around the country. During a visit to Santiago de Cuba — where Fidel Castro's ashes were buried in 2016 — Díaz-Canel called on teachers to ensure that Castro's legacy of free education continues.

"If we took the oath that Fidel would always be with us ... this work must become a bulwark," he said, according to Granma.

Raising his profile

Would-be successors to the Castro brothers have come and gone, but the Cuban regime has been easing Díaz-Canel into more prominent roles in recent years.

According to state media, he hosted meetings in Cuba with leaders of Mexico, Spain, Germany, India, Pakistan, El Salvador, South Africa, Portugal, the United Arab Emirates, the Vatican and New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo.

He also led government delegations to Russia, China, Japan, North Korea, Nicaragua, Ecuador, Angola, Bolivia and the 2016 Summit of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States.

True believer

The few times he has spoken publicly, Díaz-Canel has made clear he believes in the Marxist-Leninist ideology that formed the basis of the Castro revolution. He also has fully embraced the country's suspicion of the Yankees to the north.

In a speech in October, he blasted the United States for its insistence that Cuba move toward a more democratic government.

"Imperialism can never be trusted, not even a tiny bit, never," he said, echoing the words of Cuban revolutionary Ernesto "Che" Guevara on the 50th anniversary of his death.

Díaz-Canel's most extensive comments came in a video that was leaked and posted on YouTube last year by Cuban dissident Antonio Rodiles. In the video, Díaz-Canel said the embassies of the United States, Norway, Spain, Germany and Britain supported "subversive activity" on the island. And he vowed to crack down on dissidents and independent media, saying they were paid by foreign actors to foment dissent.

"We will shut it down," Díaz-Canel said of one website. "Let the scandal ensure. Let them say we censor. Everyone censors here."

Such comments, Sabatini said, show that his public image masks the reality that Díaz-Canel will act like his hard-line predecessors.

"There's no reason to believe otherwise," Sabatini said. "He wouldn't have made it this far if he wasn't."