"Dictatorship without Imagination": The Diagnosis of Cuba from El Mundo

The journalist and writer Gina Montaner published a column in El Mundo where she argues that totalitarian regimes “lack imagination” because they rely on dogma and “do not deviate from the script,” using this idea to interpret the most recent public appearance of Cuban leader Miguel Díaz-Canel amid reports of high-level contacts between Washington and Havana.

In his analysis, Montaner asserts that interest in Díaz-Canel grew following days when President Donald Trump and his Secretary of State Marco Rubio hinted that the "roadmap" with Cuba could have similarities with Venezuela, emphasizing the "suffocation" of the Cuban system, particularly due to the blockade on fuel imports.

The author suggests that, “between the lines,” these messages open up speculations about a transition and the search for a “Cuban equivalent” to figures in the Venezuelan framework.

According to the text, Díaz-Canel expressed his willingness to engage in dialogue with the United States, but without "pressures," without "preconditions," and "without undermining our sovereignty."

Montaner interprets those phrases as a reaffirmation of the "resistance manual" of Castroism and as an announcement of a "contingency plan" focused on the "defense" of the model.

Back to the Special Period

The column describes the moment as a “déjà vu” that refers to the Special Period of the 1990s, when — it points out — the fall of the Soviet Union left the Island without subsidies and led to a phase of hunger and decline.

The author argues that the current tightening of U.S. pressure and fuel shortages are placing Cubans back in a vulnerable situation, facing blackouts, difficulties in obtaining food, and a humanitarian crisis that—she writes—“is not a figment of the imagination.”

Montaner also questions the official call for "creative resistance": he presents it as a demand for the population to "manage as best they can" in the face of hunger and a lack of services, a statement—according to his perspective—made by a leadership that is "devoid of imagination," a quality that he contrasts with "free societies that progress."

In this context, it mentions the role of the Church and political intermediaries as channels that, it asserts, go beyond the public statements of Havana and Washington.

Gina Montaner is a journalist and writer, and the daughter of the late Carlos Alberto Montaner. She has written about issues of freedom, politics, and personal experiences.