HAVANA.- Miguel Diaz-Canel Bermudez was elected President of the Council of State of the Republic of Cuba, this Wednesday during the constitutive session of the IX Legislature of the National Assembly of People's Power (ANPP).
Alina Balseiro Gutiérrez, president of the National Electoral Commission (CEN), at the Havana Convention Center announced the results of the vote on the 604 ballots cast, when 99.83 of the valid votes were cast for the election of Díaz-Canel Bermúdez.
Of all the voters, 602 voted for all, while two voted selectively, Balseiro said.
The new President of the Council of State will also head the Government, as established in the Cuban constitution.
In order to shape the project of candidatures unanimously approved by the deputies on Wednesday, it was said that the manifest will of Raúl Castro Ruz was taken into account, who in the last session of the ANPP, in December, reiterated that when the IX Legislature of the ANPP was constituted, he would have concluded his second and last mandate as head of the councils of State and Ministers.
Balseiro Gutiérrez also informed that Salvador Valdés Mesa was elected First Vice President with all the valid votes cast; as well as the Vice Presidents Ramiro Valdés Menéndez, Roberto Morales Ojeda, Gladys Bejerano Portela and Inés María Chapman Waugh, except Beatriz Johnson Urrutia who obtained 99.83 percent.
Homero Acosta Álvarez was ratified in the election as Secretary of the Council of State.
In the 31-member elected state body, there are 15 women, 11 new members and 12 wereratified.
Belonging to the generation born after the triumph of the Revolution, the Electronic Engineer and Master in Management Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez is a member of the Political Bureau of the Party since 2003.
In his biography, his work as a student leader stands out, until he became the first secretary of the Provincial Committee of the Young Communist League in Villa Clara and his second secretary in the national leadership.
He has vast experience in political leadership in the Party, promoted since 1993 he became a member of the provincial bureau in Villa Clara, serving as the first secretary in that territory and later in Holguín.
He was appointed Minister of Higher Education in 2009, Vice President of the Council of Ministers in 2012 and elected First Vice President of the Council of State a year later.