Cuban President Raul Castro is to step down in April straight after his successor is chosen by a top governing council, according to a vote on Thursday in the Cuban National Assembly.
The decision means Castro, 86, is to stay on two months longer than previously anticipated.
“When the National Assembly in constituted [in April], my second and last term as head of state and the government will be concluded and Cuba will have a new president,” Castro said when closing the parliamentary session.
He was to have stepped down in February under a system tied to the nation’s electoral calendar, but polls have been pushed back because of a damaging hurricane that hit the nation in September.
The Cuban president is designated by a 31-member body called the Council of State. The head of the council is automatically president of the nation, but the Council of State first has to be selected by the National Assembly, which has about 600 seats, a process that is now due to take place on April 19, lawmakers voted in a session closed to international media.
Castro had already announced he would not be seeking a new mandate.
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