Cuba’s likely new leader, Miguel Diaz-Canel, faces economic and diplomatic challenges

Before becoming the heir apparent to Cuban President Raul Castro, when Miguel 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, Díaz-Canel could show up unannounced to inspect whether workers were actually on the job and not pilfering supplies or taking a nap.

Miguel Díaz-Canel speaks with reporters after voting in the National Assembly elections in March.

That fastidiousness and willingness to work around the clock may be key assets after Díaz-Canel was nominated to become the next president of the Communist-run island when Raul Castro, 86, steps down Thursday.

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New assembly to choose post-Castro president

02:01 - Source: CNN

It’s the first time since the 1959 revolution that Cuba has a head of state not named Castro.

And it marks a long-awaited generational transition from the now-aging guerrilla fighters who seized power at the point of a gun to government bureaucrats who have lived their whole life under the Castros’ socialist project.

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A look Fidel Castro's life (2016)

03:45 - Source: CNN

Who would succeed Fidel and Raul Castro has been the subject of intense speculation in Cuba for decades and has led to the fall from grace of more than one official for seemingly vying for the job.

A steady ascension

An electrical engineer by training, Díaz-Canel was born a year after Fidel Castro took power. Tall and gray-haired, with the physique of a former body builder who no longer hits the gym that often, Díaz-Canel speaks in a soft monotone and rarely strays too far from the script in public appearances.

But while there were other, more dynamic members of his generation who years earlier appeared to have a better lock on the top job, Díaz-Canel quietly made a name for himself as an efficient administrator while serving as the top Communist Party official for the provinces of Villa Clara and then Holguín, where Fidel and Raul Castro were born.

A couple in Céspedes, Cuba, pose in front of their home. After he took power in 1959, Fidel Castro promised to improve the lives of people living in Cuba's poverty-stricken countryside. He oversaw literacy and electrification campaigns and built hospitals for the rural poor. In recent decades, though, many Cubans living in the countryside have moved to cities, seeking better housing conditions and more economic opportunities.

An American car from the 1950s rots in the run-down neighborhood of Centro Habana. Transportation and housing are in short supply in Cuba. Most Cubans still work for the state and barely earn enough to live on, much less afford a luxury item like a car or a better place to live. Cuban officials blame the US trade embargo for Cuba's economic woes. Critics say government inefficiency and poor planning have kept wages low.

Cubans get ready to rock at the Rolling Stones' historic concert in Havana in 2016. The band played just days after President Barack Obama visited the island and there was a sense of change sweeping Cuba. In the early years of the Cuban revolution, rock and roll bands like the Rolling Stones were banned for their supposed "ideologically divergent" influences.

Hurricane Irma blows down palm trees in Caibairién, Cuba, as the Category 5 storm ravaged much of Caribbean in early September of 2017. The storm wrecked large parts of Cuba's agricultural sector and left thousands with damaged homes. Even though Cubans are proud of their well-organized hurricane preparedness system, Irma overwhelmed the country's efforts. At least 10 people died on the island as a result the storm.

Cubans fish off Havana's Malecón seawall at sunset. The wall has been used during the years by Cubans launching small boats to attempt the dangerous journey across the Straits of Florida to the United States. Cubans who reached the US were allowed to stay there under the so-called "wet foot, dry foot" law that gave Cubans special immigration status. But in 2017, President Obama ended that policy and Cubans who reach the US are now being sent back to the island.

A classic American car rolls by the first American cruise ship to visit Cuba in decades. In 2016 the US restarted regular cruise ship service to the island, and for the first time since the Cuban revolution, US visitors came to Cuba in large numbers. Americans are still restricted to "permitted" forms of travel to the island, and President Donald Trump has enacted restrictions on where Americans can stay and spend money, to prevent their dollars from going into the pocket of the Cuban military.

Cubans sell "highway cheese" by the side of the road in Eastern Cuba. During his 10 years in power, Raul Castro's government created 200 categories of professions in which Cubans can, for the first time, legally work for themselves. These reforms led to hundreds of thousands of Cubans leaving their government jobs to work in the private sector. Still, an untold number of Cubans work in black market or semi-legal jobs that the Cuban government does not recognize.

Cuban students greet Fidel Castro's funeral caravan in 2016 as it traveled through Holguín, Cuba, near where Castro was born. After Castro died at the age of 90, his ashes were driven through the island, retracing the route he took as a young guerrilla leader. Upon taking power, Castro promised democratic elections but instead stayed in office for nearly 50 years.

A flag hangs from a Havana apartment building on January 1, 2018, the 59th anniversary of the Cuban revolution. The majority of Cubans today were born after the revolution and have only ever known communism and leaders named Castro. When Raul Castro steps down on April 19, his successor is likely to be the first president of Cuba from the post-revolution generation.

A boxer from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, watches matches between US and Cuban fighters in Pinar del Rio, Cuba. After the revolution, Cuba was virtually cut off from the US for decades. Now, despite the countries' ongoing political differences, there are a flurry of cultural exchanges taking place.

A Cuban man wheels his possessions in Gibara, Cuba, under a sign quoting Fidel Castro: "A new dawn shall begin to illuminate our future, a future that shall be more brilliant, a Socialism that shall be more refined, a Revolutionary work that will be more promising."

Cuban cowboys rope a steer near Santa Clara, Cuba. Despite having more land than any other island in the Caribbean, Cuba imports most of its food. The Cuban agriculture sector has struggled since the collapse of the Soviet Union and is plagued by government inefficiency and shortages. Farmers lack basic equipment and all cattle belong to the state.

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