SAN JUAN, PUERTO RICO — Speculation has intensified about potential successors to Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel, with two relatives of Raúl Castro emerging as candidates. Oscar Pérez-Oliva Fraga, Castro's 55-year-old great-nephew, and Raúl Guillermo Rodríguez Castro, his grandson, have drawn attention as possible replacements for the president who has two years remaining in his term.

Díaz-Canel became Raúl Castro's handpicked successor in 2018 and is the only leader without the last name Castro to govern Cuba since the 1959 revolution. Cuba's economic and energy crises have deepened under Díaz-Canel. The president ordered a crackdown following the July 2021 anti-government protests that stemmed from food shortages.

Pérez-Oliva Fraga became minister of Cuba's Ministry of Foreign Trade and Investment in May 2024 and was appointed deputy prime minister in October 2024. He was named a deputy within Cuba's National Assembly of People's Power in December, a requirement for any Cuban president. The electrical engineer previously served as director general of an import company and business director within Cuba's Mariel Special Development Zone.

Rodríguez Castro has never occupied a government post but served as his grandfather's bodyguard and as head of Cuba's equivalent of the U.S. Secret Service. He met secretly with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio on the sidelines of a Caribbean Community summit in St. Kitts last month. Marco Rubio refused to say who he was speaking to in the Cuban government at that meeting.

Rodríguez Castro attended a government meeting with Díaz-Canel on March 13 when Díaz-Canel announced that Cuba had held talks with the U.S. government. He was also present at the news conference that followed. "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.

Deputy Foreign Minister Carlos Fernández de Cossío said to reporters, "The Cuban political system is not up for negotiation, nor is the president, nor the position of any official in Cuba, subject to negotiation with the United States or with the government of any other country." The statement came as discussion about Cuba's leadership has intensified.

Arcos noted challenges for Rodríguez Castro: "He cannot be the transitional figure, because his last name disqualifies him." Raúl Castro remains at the helm of the Cuban military with the rank of general and is considered the most powerful person in Cuba. "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."