While officials from the Communist Party of Cuba (PCC) in Matanzas were celebrating on Thursday the 65th anniversary of the proclamation of the socialist nature of the revolution with speeches about the regime's "achievements," Cubans both inside and outside the island responded with irony and dark humor on social media, turning the official event into a target of widespread criticism.
The event took place at the Parque de la Libertad in Matanzas, presided over by Mario Sabines Lorenzo, first secretary of the Provincial Committee of the PCC, and broadcast by the official Canal Caribe on YouTube.
During the open forum, the president of the Municipal Assembly of People's Power, Daylín Alfonso Mora, declared that "we will continue defending the achievements of our country and we will continue making revolution despite all the difficulties."
For her part, journalism student Flavia Contreras Vega emphasized that this type of act reaffirms "the will of the Cuban people to continue defending their achievements," as well as being "a way to honor those who gave their lives on the sands of Playa Girón to defend the Cuban revolution and uphold the ideas of the commander-in-chief."
The popular reaction was swift. The question that encapsulated the general sentiment was: "What achievements? The one with coal?", directly referring to the energy crisis that forces millions of Cubans to cook with charcoal or firewood due to the lack of gas and electricity.
The context surrounding that sarcasm is devastating for the official discourse, with daily electricity generation deficits of around 1,900 MW during peak hours, blackouts affecting up to 60% of the national territory simultaneously, and power cuts lasting between 20 and 24 hours a day in many areas.
According to various estimates, tens of thousands of Cuban households currently cook with charcoal, firewood, or sawdust. A bag of charcoal can cost between 1,700 and 5,000 Cuban pesos, equivalent to the full monthly salary of a state worker.
The ruler himself, Miguel Díaz-Canel, implicitly acknowledged the collapse by asking in March to "ensure materials for cooking ranging from charcoal to firewood", an admission that the State is unable to provide basic services to the population.
Days before the event in Matanzas, a Cuban identified as "Azucar Cuba" went viral on Facebook with a video in which she asked: "I need you to tell me how many more bags of coal I need to buy. I can't take it anymore. I'll leave it there."
The comments on the video of the official event followed the same trend. Sandra Claver wrote: "With what I have bought, I could have built a house." Gilberto Valbuena noted: "Charcoal is a luxury, soon it will be firewood if it appears, but there’s still the alternative from Díaz-Canel, that of using biomass." Georgina Portuondo Aties was more direct: "No one can take it anymore."
The discourse on the "achievements of the revolution" has a recent history of friction with reality. In April, during a parliamentary session held at the National Capitol, a Cuban deputy used that exact phrase while debating the 2026 budget, which contemplates a fiscal deficit of 74.5 billion pesos and a contraction of GDP of up to 7.2%.
The actor and comedian Ulises Toirac also criticized the main event of the 65th anniversary, led by Díaz-Canel on April 16 in Havana, describing it as "waste of resources amidst increasingly prolonged blackouts".
While the regime insists on celebrating its "conquests," the Cuban education system is facing a shortage of over 2,000 teachers in several provinces, and in healthcare, complaints about a lack of medications, deteriorating facilities, and a massive exodus of professionals continue to accumulate.
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