Manuel Anido Cuesta, son of Lis Cuesta Peraza and a "dissident" in the family of leader Miguel Díaz-Canel (in his own words), traveled to the United Arab Emirates with his stepfather, his mother, and the rest of the official delegation accompanying him.
Law graduate Anido Cuesta is already a regular on trips with the Cuban leader. Like his mother, his institutional role is not clearly defined, but he travels in official delegations at the expense of the public treasury.
Just as Lis Cuesta is not the "first lady," but embodies that role – to the extent of her capabilities – during her husband's tours, Anido Cuesta rises as an ambiguous figure within the nomenclature of the regime.
His presence in the presidential delegations of the dictatorship is so confusing that, at the end of June, Díaz-Canel introduced him to Pope Francis as the son of Cuesta Peraza during a formal greeting that was quite noteworthy.
He did not introduce him as his son, but as his wife's son, that "not first lady" who was at the front of the line, followed by the stepson of the ruler and Chancellor Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla, that conductor who ensures that Díaz-Canel appears to be the ruler of Cuba on such occasions.
This Wednesday, Díaz-Canel met in Dubai with Sheikh Mohamad Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, President of the United Arab Emirates, as part of his tour of the Middle East that began on Tuesday.
The official Cuban media and the palace ushers did not mention Anido Cuesta, nor did they explain to the people who fund their travels what the role of this young figure is in the charade that is the Cuesta-Díaz-Canel marriage.
A photograph published in the Emirati newspaper Al Khaleej showed Díaz-Canel laughing uproariously with the Sheikh (“may God protect him”), and behind him, also laughing, was the “opponent” from the family - according to the introduction made by the leader of the “continuity” in the Vatican.
"What was the joke?" will be the question of those who see the image of that delegation claiming to represent Cuba, led by a "straw man" trying to cloak in legitimacy a grotesque scenario in which his family participates as part of the "government": the one responsible for hunger, the lack of rights and freedoms, and the repression of Cubans.
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