As US pressure grows for leadership change in Cuba, a Castro could be the next president
Cuba's President Miguel Diaz-Canel holds up a Cuban flag as he watches the May Day parade next to Raul Castro, second from right, and Raul Castro's grandson, Raul Guillermo Rodriguez Castro, at Revolution Square in Havana, May 1, 2025. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa, File) 2026-03-24T19:26:15Z SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — As U.S.
President Donald Trump pushes for change in Cuba’s leadership, speculation is mounting about who, if anyone, might replace Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel .
As Raúl Castro ‘s handpicked largely figurehead successor in 2018, Diaz-Canel has been the only leader without the last name Castro to govern since the 1959 revolution.
He still has two years left in his term —- but some experts and a growing number of Cubans doubt he’ll make it.
Two Castro cousins have come into focus as potential replacements, experts said.
Oscar Pérez-Oliva Fraga — Raúl Castro’s 55-year-old great nephew — has shot to power since emerging from obscurity several years ago.
He became minister of Cuba’s influential Ministry of Foreign Trade and Investment in May 2024 and was appointed the island’s deputy prime minister in October.
By contrast, Raúl Guillermo Rodríguez Castro — Raúl Castro’s grandson — has never occupied a government post, having served as his grandfather’s bodyguard and later as head of Cuba’s equivalent of the U.S.
Secret Service.
He has long been known as “Raulito,” or “Little Raúl” and is new to the spotlight cast on high-ranking government officials.
But he made news last month when he secretly met on the sidelines of a Caribbean Community summit in St.
Kitts with U.S.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio .
At the time, Rubio refused to say who he was speaking to in the Cuban government. “The role Raulito is playing right now is the connection between Raúl Castro and whoever is on the U.S. side,” said Sebastián Arcos, interim director of the Cuban Research Institute at Florida International University. “He enjoys the absolute trust of Raúl Castro.” But, Arcos and other experts argue, even should someone with the Castro pedigree take the presidency, little is likely to change. “Party leadership doesn’t mean anything in Cuba,” Arcos said. “The party is just a hollow façade.
The real power resides in the military, under Raúl Castro.” The 94-year-old remains at the helm as general, appears at key events and is considered the most powerful person in Cuba , a country subject to more than six decades of absolute rule, first by revolu
原文链接: AP News