Miguel Mario Díaz-Canel Bermúdez (born April 20, 1960, in Placetas, Villa Clara, province of Cuba) is a Cuban politician and university professor who has served as the President of the Republic of Cuba since October 10, 2019
He has been a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of Cuba since 1997 and served as Minister of Higher Education from 2009 to 2012, before being promoted to the position of Vice President of the Council of Ministers in 2012. A year later, on February 24, 2013, he was elected First Vice President of the Council, making him the second in line for the executive power of Cuba.
He graduated as an electrical engineer in 1982 when he joined the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Cuba, where he stayed until 1985. Starting in April of that year, he became a professor at the "Marta Abreu" University of Las Villas. In 1987, he completed an international mission in Nicaragua as the first secretary of the "Young Communists' Union (UJC)" in Villa Clara. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, he was a member of the national committee of the UJC and served as second secretary under the first secretary Roberto Robaina.
In 1993, he began working in the Communist Party of Cuba, and a year later, he was elected first secretary of the Provincial Party Committee in the province of Villa Clara. In 2003, he was elected to the same position in the province of Holguín.
He was appointed by Raúl Castro as Minister of Higher Education in May 2009, a position he held until March 22, 2012, when he became Vice President of the Council of Ministers, responsible for the areas of science, education, culture, and sports.
Díaz-Canel has two children from a previous marriage and is married to Lis Cuesta Peraza, a graduate of the Holguín Institute of Pedagogical Sciences.
