The Cuban leader Miguel Díaz-Canel had the audacity to claim in an exclusive interview with NBC News that he would resign only if the Cuban people deemed him unfit for the position, a statement that is hard to uphold when that same civil society has been protesting in the streets across the island for months.
The interview was granted yesterday to Kristen Welker, host of Meet the Press, marking the first appearance of a Cuban leader on U.S. television in decades.
In response to the direct question of whether he would be willing to resign to save Cuba —referring to the demands of the Trump administration— Díaz-Canel responded with irritation and questioned whether the journalist would ask the same question to President Donald Trump.
"The concept that revolutionaries abandon or resign does not belong to our vocabulary," asserted the Cuban leader, before adding a condition that sounds ironic given the reality of the island: "If the Cuban people understand that I am unfit for the position, that I have not been up to the task, then I should not hold the presidency. I will be accountable to them."
The irony of that statement is striking. At the moment Díaz-Canel pronounced those words, Cuba had been experiencing weeks of massive street protests, the largest since the historic July 11, 2021.
Since March 6, at least 156 protests have been recorded in multiple provinces, featuring noise-making with pots and pans, road blockades, garbage burning, and attacks on Communist Party headquarters.
On the same day as the interview, April 9, there were reports of protests in Guantánamo with the deployment of black berets, plainclothes police, and patrols.
On March 14, protesters in Morón, Ciego de Ávila, attacked the provincial headquarters of the Communist Party, burned furniture, and caused damage to a pharmacy and a state store.
In this context, Secretary of State Marco Rubio was straightforward: "You need to put new people in charge because the current leaders don't know how to fix it."
Díaz-Canel rejected any interference and accused Washington of lacking moral authority.
"The government of the United States, which has implemented a hostile policy against Cuba, has no moral authority to demand anything," he declared, calling for an unconditional dialogue.
While the regime attempts an international media offensive, Cuban civil society launched in February the campaign "Que se vayan" signed by figures such as Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara and José Daniel Ferrer from the Unión Patriótica de Cuba, which demands a democratic transition with free elections and the release of the more than 1,200 political prisoners documented on the island.
In 2025, there had already been 11,268 protests, complaints, and criticisms of the regime according to the Cuban Observatory of Conflicts, a figure that highlights how long the Cuban people have been sending the very message that Díaz-Canel claims to be willing to hear.
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