To climb out of the deep hole the Cuban economy is in, it is not enough to simply introduce — with excessive delay — a reform package like the one comprising 176 measures. And I say this as someone who is neither an economist nor anything of the sort.
It is a matter of plain common sense, and thousands — perhaps millions — of Cubans are saying the same thing. Furthermore, Cuba needs a profound political reform that brings about democratic opening.
Old Lenin — as both a thinker and a political leader, a figure whom hardly anyone remembers anymore — left us a succinct phrase that is easy to grasp and reveals the meaning of many things: “Politics is the concentrated expression of economics.” And not the other way around.
Far from being parallel, let alone disconnected, realms, the political sphere (which encompasses laws, the structure and functions of the state and institutional apparatus, and public policies) is a sort of distillation of class interests.
In Cuba, economic and political power has been concentrated in the hands of a privileged bureaucratic class; for decades, this group has turned its supposedly messianic mission of representing the people’s interests into its primary asset.
Yet, their modus vivendi has been characterized by a lack of transparency, a near-total absence of accountability, the repression of dissent through various means, and the centralization of resources and decision-making.
All of this owes much to the hostility of the United States and a policy of blockade that has progressively escalated to the present day, where a strategy of strangulation against Cuba is being pursued.
Under “enemy fire,” in the trenches, the Cuban political system was designed, and is sustained, based on the logic of resistance as its premise. Democratic improvement and deepening are sidelined or dismissed.
Power exercised in this manner, based on a predominantly authoritarian and centralist style, has had significant room for maneuver and “blank checks” granted in the past by the people themselves.
Yet today that same population on the island is starving, lacking the most basic services for survival, and living in an absurd reality where little to nothing works and life slips away without hope for the short or medium term. The social contract is fracturing day by day.
The situation I describe did not begin to manifest in January 2026. Those who find it convenient to forget fail to recall that by September 2019, the country was already facing “the conjuncture” [a period of acute economic crisis]. Furthermore, Trump’s hostile stance toward Cuba — and the direction events were likely to take — was perfectly well known as early as 2017.
Despite this, things remained essentially the “same.” The botched, half-hearted reforms pending since 2011 remained stalled. Certain poor decisions — such as the failed “Task of Reorganization” — contributed to the current disaster.
Those same people with convenient memories choose to ignore the exodus of some 1.5 million people who have left Cuba over the last five years, fleeing the crisis, frustrated and utterly unwilling to endure any more hardship.
The per capita burden of resistance in Cuba is immense — a state of affairs that is both honor and ruin.
Population loss is one of the deepest wounds of recent years, posing a serious challenge for the country’s future, given its aging demographic.
The United States factor is, of course, highly significant in this landscape. It is abundantly clear that the reforms unveiled just over a month ago — a package of 176 measures that, according to Díaz-Canel, remain open to further revision and expansion — represent a desperate attempt to salvage the situation at the eleventh hour.
So many years have passed, and such a heavy toll has been exacted on the nation and its people, that many find it hard to accept that the very same individuals and institutional structures which squandered precious time and delayed the implementation of those reforms now possess the conviction and capacity to carry them through.
For decades, the people — analysts, experts, observers, and ordinary citizens alike, including many Communist Party members — has been demanding almost all the changes now being hailed as essential, precisely because their necessity is so obvious.
For days and months, we have heard Cuban authorities assert that economic changes in Cuba are being made to “strengthen socialism” and that there will be no political changes — certainly not under pressure from the United States.
I believe it is time for those same authorities to acknowledge that the pressure for such political changes is not external but arises from within the island itself. Furthermore, if the people have not yet taken to violent protest, it is due first to the fear of repression and, second, to the miracle that is the Cuban people’s consistent political culture.
And in this I include the vast diaspora, which — mostly quietly (one should not be guided by what happens on Facebook or by loud-mouthed influencers) — calibrates its political ideas and opinions, distinguishing necessity from virtue.
In this context, Cuba needs political changes now, with the same urgency with which it demands economic ones.
It is essential to rebuild consensus and make viable a reform process that involves — based on principles of credibility, trust, equality and justice — all Cubans who are willing, able, and have something to contribute.
It has been said many times, but it must be repeated until they are convinced.
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For instance, it is imperative to decree the release of prisoners and an amnesty far deeper and broader than those seen in recent years, if the goal is to demonstrate that there is room for all Cubans and that we all have a role to play for the country during this tragic time.
The authorities should show compassion, especially toward those whom the government refuses to acknowledge as political prisoners. The number does not matter; a single case is enough to demand a different approach to political management and social coexistence.
Many of us hope for a gesture of goodwill toward those who have already served prison sentences — some of them frankly disproportionate — for expressing political dissent.
Without the confidence that “thinking differently” and expressing those thoughts will not entail risks or consequences, it will be very difficult to advance a national dialogue. And this is essential for rebuilding the common interest, the drive for unity or collective sacrifice that will lift us out of the current crisis through our own efforts. It is fundamental.
Cuban authorities rightly insist on extending a hand to Washington, seeking a “relationship based on respect and equal footing,” free from impositions. That same approach must apply to Cuban citizens themselves: the same respect and a legal framework that guarantees the freedom to think and act — even from the opposition — without harm to anyone and without the risk of arrest, interrogation or prosecution.
Neither investors, the diaspora, nor Cubans on the island will commit their efforts or believe in a “new phase” as long as arbitrary repression persists and the social contract remains unrenewed. Capital is skittish, nervous and unanchored.
In neighborhoods like Centro Habana and San Miguel del Padrón, and in cities like Santiago de Cuba and Artemisa, the “cacerolazos” — pot-banging protests — taking place day and night are no longer focused solely on demands for electricity and water.
With increasing frequency, calls are being made for political change, the replacement or resignation of officials, and new elections; the response cannot simply be silent listening or dismissing these expressions as mere products of a desperate, overwhelming situation.
Calmly — and rooted in the people’s political culture, as I acknowledged earlier — these demands are increasingly being voiced.
Turning a deaf ear will not work; it will greatly complicate the chances that the announced economic reforms — and those yet to come — will achieve the urgent transformation Cuba needs. Whether there are 176 or 458 new measures, they must entail democratic opening and a significant expansion of effective popular participation.
