Note: Miguel Díaz-Canel, a Younger Version of the Castros?

Miguel Díaz-Canel, 57, is set to be introduced as Cuba's new president by the 'National Assembly of People's Power' on Thursday, April 19, following the end of Raúl Castro's five-year presidential term. He is seen as a younger version of the two brothers who have monopolized leadership in the country for sixty years. Raúl Castro, 86, who took over executive power from his brother Fidel in 2006, promised during the April 2013 National Assembly meeting that he would step down after his five-year presidential term, and he has remained true to this promise. At the beginning of his last presidential term, Raúl appointed the 52-year-old Díaz-Canel as vice president to prepare him for leadership of Cuba and the continuation of its socialist system. Fidel Castro seized political power in Cuba in 1959. During Fidel's long rule, from 1959 to 1976 as Prime Minister and from 1976 until the transition of power to his brother Raúl between 2006 and 2008 as President, the only permitted competition in Cuba was in sports. Political freedoms in Cuba are limited, comparable to the few remaining communist systems in the world, with voters' rights conditioned on voting for representatives of the Communist Party, the only legal party in the country. Cuba's economy is state-run, centralized, and reliant on planning, lagging behind other countries with similar natural resources and human capacities that are managed democratically and freely. In 1980, the government provided 91 percent of jobs, and as a result of a slow movement towards trade liberalization, this share decreased to 76 percent by 2000. Despite low housing and transportation costs, Cuba's GDP ranked 95th in the world last year, and with an inflation rate of 5 percent, the country's economic growth did not exceed 3 percent. Due to the lifting of some sanctions during the Obama administration and increased tourism revenue, Cuba's economic growth has slightly improved in recent years, but new sanctions from the Trump administration or a change in the socialist government of Venezuela, which provides cheap oil, could pose new challenges to its GDP growth. One of the notable aspects of Cuba's socialist system is its antagonism towards the United States and its role in escalating the Cold War by accepting Soviet ballistic missiles in the 1960s. Miguel Díaz-Canel has been prepared by Raúl Castro for the presidency of Cuba for five years and is set to officially take power on the anniversary of the failed U.S. military invasion of the Bay of Pigs in 1961, which was designed to overthrow Castro. The transfer of power from Fidel Castro to his brother Raúl occurred smoothly over two years, with Fidel remaining in the leadership of the Communist Party of Cuba for some time after gradually relinquishing executive power. Raúl Castro, if he survives until 2021 when he will be 90 years old, is expected to retain leadership of the ruling Communist Party. Díaz-Canel, who is considered the third socialist president of Cuba in the past 60 years, began his political career in the Communist Youth Organization, grew in the military, and made his way into local organizations, catching Raúl's attention. Although the change of president usually leads to a series of other changes in management and executive hierarchy, it is not expected that Díaz-Canel's planned rise to power will, at least in the short term, surpass Raúl Castro's limited reforms in tourism and attracting foreign visitors, leading to significant changes in the structure of the country's socialist system.