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The leader Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez is mentoring the doctoral thesis of Joel Queipo Ruíz, the first secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba in the province of Holguín, according to what the Ministry of Higher Education of Cuba published this Thursday on its official Facebook page.
The defense took place yesterday at the José Antonio Echeverría Technological University of Havana (CUJAE), as part of the Doctoral Training Program in Industrial Engineering and Systems.
The title of the thesis is "Political Management System of the Economy for Multidimensional Transformation in the Cuban Context," a topic that is striking given that Díaz-Canel presides over Cuba during one of the greatest economic collapses the island has faced in decades.
Alongside Díaz-Canel, the research was led by Doctors Armando Cuesta Santos, Daniel Alfonso Robaina, and Fernando Guzmán Martínez.
The ministry celebrated the outcome with a message describing the research as having "remarkable theoretical, methodological, and practical contributions to the country."
Queipo Ruíz, 52 years old, holds a degree in Nuclear Physics with a master's in the same field, is a member of the Central Committee of the PCC, and a deputy to the National Assembly, with 28 years of experience as a political operator.
He was appointed the first secretary of the PCC in Holguín in April 2024, coming from the Secretariat of the Central Committee, where he led the Productive Economic Department.
The irony of the episode is not lost: the man who is driving the Cuban economy towards massive blackouts, widespread shortages of food and medicine, and rampant inflation is now mentoring a thesis on how to politically manage that very economy.
According to the Cuban Observatory of Human Rights, 72% of the Cuban population experienced food insecurity in 2024, a figure that has been on the rise.
This is not the first instance of the former president in the role of academic tutor for senior officials of the regime.
In December 2021, Díaz-Canel was one of the advisors for the doctoral thesis of then Minister of Economy Alejandro Gil Fernández, titled "Methodology for the Management of the National Economic and Social Development Plan of Cuba."
Gil was dismissed in 2024 and later prosecuted by the Cuban justice system.
The Supreme People's Court confirmed in January 2026 the life sentence of Alejandro Gil for espionage, along with an additional 20 years for bribery, document forgery, influence peddling, and tax evasion.
Díaz-Canel himself appeared as a witness in the trial against his former protégé in November 2025, and subsequently publicly attacked him following the sentencing.
Díaz-Canel obtained his own Doctorate in Technical Sciences in March 2021 with a thesis on governance management and innovation, which provides him with the academic qualification necessary to serve as a tutor in such doctoral programs.
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