Post-Castro Cuba

[Isgrimnur]

NPR

Miguel Mario Díaz-Canel Bermúdez has been elected president of Cuba, officially ending the Castro family's decades of domination of the country's highest office. The Communist Party formally announced the presidency's transition from Raúl Castro on Thursday, in what might better be described as a coronation than an election.

In fact, if there was any surprise at all, it might be that Díaz-Canel, the 57-year-old party stalwart long expected to succeed Castro, did not win every vote cast after the party nominated him its sole candidate Wednesday. Just 603 of 604 Cuban lawmakers voted for him in a secret ballot that night.

After the result was announced Thursday, Díaz-Canel and Castro mounted the dais in front of the National Assembly and embraced in a gesture both real and deeply symbolic.
...
He outlined a vision of gradual policy evolution — and at the same time, he was careful to add that his predecessor, who has led Cuba since 2008 when his brother Fidel stepped down, would remain very much a force in the government. Raúl Castro might be passing the presidential torch, as it were, but the 86-year-old leader remains head of the military and the ruling Communist Party.

Castro pledged to lead the party until 2021, at which point Díaz-Canel is expected to replace him in that position, as well.
...
Still, beneath the promises of continuity rests an important — if symbolic — changing of the guard. At nearly three decades Castro's junior, Díaz-Canel hails from a generation that wasn't even alive when Fidel Castro led the revolution ousting military dictator Fulgencio Batista in 1959.

And though he has publicly espoused party orthodoxy, Díaz-Canel has not been a cookie-cutter bureaucrat, exactly. NPR's Carrie Kahn notes that as a young man, the longtime provincial leader who became first vice president "did sport long hair, loved rock music and even backed a local LGBT-friendly cultural center."

[Jaymann]

At least the trains run on time. If they had any trains. Or clocks.

[Isgrimnur]

https://twitter.com/VP/status/987078565069033473

Spoiler:

“He couldn’t take it and left,” Raul Castro says of @VP Pence in Peru, in a dig at Trump admin.

Hey Raul - looks like you’re the one leaving... and we’re here standing with the Cuban people. And we’re not going anywhere until Cuba has free & fair elections, political prisoners are released & the people of Cuba are finally free! #CubaLibre

[Freyland]

Probably should repost that in the "President Pence" thread since people thought he wouldn't engage in Trump-level douchbaggery.

[Max Peck]

Cuba suffers nationwide blackout after main power plant fails

Cuba experienced a nationwide blackout after its main energy plant failed, officials said.

Its power grid collapsed at around 11:00 (15:00 GMT), the energy ministry wrote on X.

Grid officials said they did not know how long it would take to restore power.

This follows months of lengthy blackouts on the island - prompting the prime minister to declare an "energy emergency" on Thursday.

[Daehawk]

Poor them. Maybe they'll get a better government in place that will actually help the people instead of lord over them. I feel bad for the everyday Cuban...they live in shit while their leaders live the high life. Time they took their country back. America would love to have them as friends again.

[hepcat]

To be fair, they were living in poverty when America was their friend….or more appropriately, friends with the dictator before Castro.

America doesn’t always wear a white hat.

[Isgrimnur]

Fulgencio Batista

Batista suspended the 1940 Constitution and revoked most political liberties, including the right to strike. He then aligned with the wealthiest landowners who owned the largest sugar plantations, and presided over a stagnating economy that widened the gap between rich and poor Cubans. Eventually, it reached the point where most of the sugar industry was in U.S. hands, and foreigners owned 70% of the arable land. As such, Batista's repressive government then began to systematically profit from the exploitation of Cuba's commercial interests, by negotiating lucrative relationships both with the American Mafia, who controlled the drug, gambling, and prostitution businesses in Havana, and with large U.S.-based multinational companies who were awarded lucrative contracts.

[Grifman]

To be fair, they were living in poverty when America was their friend….or more appropriately, friends with the dictator before Castro.

America doesn’t always wear a white hat.

To be fair, this is not entirely accurate when placed in context. In 1960 Cuba’s per capita GDP was ranked in the upper middle of Latin American economies. And though it did have problems with income inequality, it again compared favorably with other LA economies. Though Cuba’s per capita GDP info today is very unreliable, even it’s stated numbers would put it towards the bottom of LA rankings, and it is probably much worse. The only way that Cuba looked good economically was due to massive subsidies from the firmer USSR. Once those went away, the emperor was shown to have no clothes.

Basically the Communist years are, and continue to be, lost years in economic growth.

[hepcat]

Sometimes an American supported dictator is good for the economy, I suppose.

[Grifman]

Sometimes an American supported dictator is good for the economy, I suppose.

Sometimes one evil can be replaced by a greater evil. Yes, sadly and wrongly, the U.S. supported many dictatorships in LA during the Cold War. But it is also a fact that after the fall of the USSR the U.S. reversed course, and now almost all LA nations are democracies with the exception of Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua.

The problem is that Communist countries such as Cuba are very resistant to internal reform due to the party’s ability to use the state’s power to crush internal dissent, an area where communist countries seem to have a distinct advantage over most dictatorships. (I would say this is due to their superior organizational skills, but I digress). History seems to confirm idea that if Castro had failed in his revolution, democracy would have come to Cuba just as it did to almost every other LA nation and the people would be much better off today.

So, should the U.S. supported Batista? No, but in the end, it might have been worked out better for Cuba if Castro failed. History is not always as morally clear as we would like it to be.

[Brian]

[hepcat]

Yes, sadly and wrongly, the U.S. supported many dictatorships in LA during the Cold War.

So, should the U.S. supported Batista? No, but in the end, it might have been worked out better for Cuba if Castro failed. History is not always as morally clear as we would like it to be.

America doesn’t always wear a white hat.