Fidel Castro has resigned as President of Cuba, AFP informs, quoting official Cuban newspaper Granma. The announcement comes a week before the session when the new National Assembly in Havana should have confirmed whether Fidel Castro was to be replaced by his brother Raul Castro or stayed in office.

El lider maximo has not been seen in public for a year and a half, during which his brother was the the facto leader of the country. Before the elections for the National Assembly, Fidel Castro said he was too sick to speak in public and so he wouldn't join the electoral campaign.

Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz was born in the Cuban province of Biran on August 13, 1926. He and Che Guevara led the revolution that toppled General Fulgencio Batista and transformed Cuba in the first communist state in the western hemisphere.

His brother Raul is the second highest official in the country and many consider him to be the chosen successor of Fidel Castro.