2023-04-19 21:59:04
Photo: AFP
Text: Hugo Leon
Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez, the only candidate of the Cuban Parliament for the Presidency of the Republic, was re-elected in the position, which he had held since 2018.
The deputies of the National Assembly of Popular Power (ANPP) of Cuba could only mark for him on the ballot, or abstain, leaving it blank or canceling it.
Díaz-Canel is reaching this re-election after five years as the highest Cuban authority, during which time he has faced a difficult crisis at the head of the country in all areas, except the political one, where there have been no changes beyond his also being elected as first secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba in April 2021.
The president was born on April 20, 1960, so tomorrow, on his 63rd birthday, he will have begun his second and last term as President of the Republic. Ten years is the maximum that the Cuban Constitution allows for this position, so if the current legislation is not modified, Díaz-Canel would reach the maximum term of his government.
Under his previous presidential term, Cuba undertook various readjustments in government structures and also economic reforms that, beyond the good will that can be attributed to them, have not improved the situation on the island.
In the last five years, the Greater Antilles has also faced difficult situations such as one of the worst air disasters in the country’s history; the passage of a destructive tornado through downtown Havana, something that had never happened before; an unprecedented fire at the Matanzas Supertanker Base that claimed hundreds of injuries and 17 deaths, until the Covid-19 pandemic or the kidnapping of two Cuban doctors in Africa.
As if that were not enough, while he was in power, the largest anti-government protests in the nation since 1959 took place in Cuba, which ended with thousands of people behind bars and the bad taste of the population in the face of the president’s own televised call to send “To the streets the revolutionaries”, something that ended in clashes to put an end to the popular demonstrations of July 2021.
Coupled with this, the country faced the worst migration crisis in its history, with more than 300,000 Cubans crossing the border between Mexico and the United States and many others leaving for different destinations.
The monetary and exchange rate unification process, part of what the government called the “Ordering Task”, in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic, represented in the medium term the increase in service rates and the growth in the costs of living in the island.
Another measure that was not particularly well received by the people was the opening of stores in MLC, a currency with which the Cuban State does not pay. There were also more queues and more rationing, as well as shortages of food, supplies and products of all kinds and a complex energy crisis that triggered long and daily blackouts throughout Cuba.
Despite all of the above, Díaz-Canel was elected with 97.66 percent of the votes in Parliament.
Time will tell if the last five years of his term leave a better result for Cuba, and also who will be chosen to succeed him. Meanwhile, the room is still the same, if not worse than in 2018.
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