Like in most communist countries, elections in Cuba are not aimed at changing previously selected officials, but rather at highlighting existing polices and mobilizing the population to support the communist system.
Cuban parliamentary elections, late this month, without any opposition groups or parties, will ratify the weak and ineffective presidency of Miguel Díaz-Canel. More importantly, however, will be the appointment of Manuel Marrero as second-in-command and a possible Díaz-Canel successor. A former minister of tourism and current prime minister, Marrero is a party apparatchik former protégé of Luis Alberto López Calleja, head of GAESA and czar of the economy, until his recent sudden death.
Neither policy nor direction will change as a result of these elections. The influence and control of the military on the Politburo of the Communist Party will continue. Cuba’s foreign policy of support for Russia, China and Iran will not change. With Raúl Castro alive or even after his death, Cuba is unwilling to change its policies or to provide a more humane and liberal political system. The Cuban population remains intimidated and afraid of taking any actions to defy the system. They paid dearly for the July 2021 uprising. Outmigration seems the immediate and only response to repression and to the deteriorating conditions on the island.
*Jaime Suchlicki is Director of the Cuban Studies Institute, CSI, a non-profit research group in Coral Gables, FL. He is the author of Cuba: From Columbus to Castro & Beyond, now in its 5th edition; Mexico: From Montezuma to the Rise of the PAN, 2nd edition, and Breve Historia de Cuba.
* This report was previously published by the Latin America Advisor, Inter-American Dialogue, on March 8, 2023.
