Havana, April 19 (RHC)-- Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez was elected President of the Council of State of the Republic of Cuba, during Wednesday's second and final constitutive session of the IX Legislature of the National Assembly of People's Power or Cuban Parliament.

Belonging to the generation born after the triumph of the Revolution, Miguel Díaz-Canel – an Electronic Engineer with a master's degree in management- has been a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party since 2003.

Elected with 99.83 of the valid votes, he now replaces outgoing president Raúl Castro as the new Cuban head of government, as established in the Cuban Constitution.

In Díaz-Canel's biography, his work as a student leader stands out. He became the first secretary of the Provincial Committee of the Young Communist League (UJC) in his native Villa Clara and later, second secretary of the organization of young communists at the national level.

In 1993, Díaz-Canel became a member of the provincial bureau of the Communist Party in Villa Clara province, serving as the party's first secretary in that province for nine years and later, he held the same post, but in Holguín province.

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, in 2013.

During Wednesday's legislative session, Cuban deputies elected Salvador Valdés Mesa as Cuba's first vice president of the Council of State. Five vice presidents were also elected. These are Ramiro Valdés Menéndez, Roberto Morales Ojeda, Gladys Bejerano Portela, Inés María Chapman Waugh and Beatriz Johnson Urrutia. Homero Acosta was re-elected as secretary of the Cuban Council of State.