The Cuban poet and essayist Michael H. Miranda warns that if Raúl Castro were to leave the political scene, Cuba would not have immediate conditions to call for elections nor an opposition leader capable of taking charge the next day, in an analysis that becomes particularly relevant following the indictment of the Cuban dictator by the U.S. Department of Justice on May 20th.
Miranda, a resident of Houston and the author of "Deserta," "Hilachas," and "Asilo en brazos," spoke with CiberCuba about the possible scenarios for a transition in Cuba. His analysis starts from a certainty: "I believe that once that happens, there will be no stopping it," he said regarding the eventual departure of Castro. However, he immediately warns that the subsequent path would be long and complex.
"We don't have a clear leader in the opposition, as if tomorrow they will be the one to lead anything there. That will be a process of a year or a couple of years," Miranda pointed out, emphasizing that for more than 60 years, there has been no type of political campaign or free elections in Cuba.
The essayist is categorical about the impossibility of a rapid transition: "There is so much to fix in that country that calling for elections... Elections involve a tremendous amount of work behind the scenes. It's not just that we vote tomorrow and that's it."
To illustrate the differences with other processes of political change, Miranda draws a parallel with the Spanish transition and warns that Cuba does not replicate the conditions of Spain in the seventies: "The case of Spain was very particular because even under dictatorship, I repeat, Spain had certain democratic elements within society that, well, we have not even had that."
For the intellectual, the Cuban regime is qualitatively different: "It is a regime completely inherited from Stalinism. It is a single police party, that is, it is the Stasi with the KGB."
He also mentioned a "removal" of Raúl Castro similar to that of Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela as a scenario that Washington might weigh, something he does not see as likely.
This structural difference becomes evident in the strict control over information that the regime exerts over the population.
Miranda reports that, following Castro's indictment, the regime mobilized military personnel, police, and workers in support of the general, but many Cubans on the island did not understand the reason: "The narrative remains very rigid. A person told me from Cuba: 'What happened to Raúl? Now they are saying wonderful things about Raúl as if he had died,' because they didn't know what had happened. They were not aware of the indictment."
This information opacity is, in his view, the deepest obstacle to any transition. "That historic generation is dragging on at 90, 94 years old, but they are still there, they are alive. And the historical institutional framework of the regime is sustained by that," he points out, referring to figures like Guillermo García Frías (97 years), José Ramón Machado Ventura (95), and Ramiro Valdés Menéndez (93), who still form part of the power structure.
The U.S. chargé d'affaires in Havana, Mike Hammer, stated in February that Washington has been designing plans for a transition to a free Cuba that avoids chaos.
Miranda agrees that the process will be inevitable, but insists that the prerequisite is dismantling the regime's propaganda apparatus: "As long as that is not dismantled, it will be very difficult for there to be a certain awareness among people."
Filed under: