The writer and political analyst Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo responded with a resounding "no" to the question of whether Raúl Guillermo Rodríguez Castro, nicknamed "El Cangrejo," could be the Cuban Gorbachev — at least for now — and issued a direct challenge: to take the microphones and speak to the people.
The irony was originally put forward by Jorge de Armas, a collaborator of Hypermedia Magazine, in a preliminary interview with Tania Costa. Pardo Lazo picked it up to construct a central argument: what defines a Gorbachov is not the position or the lineage, but the act of speaking.
«A Gorbachov is a Gorbachov when he speaks. We have no voice in the Cuban government. Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez has not said a single word to us, not even the command order», stated the analyst.
For Pardo Lazo, Cuba is experiencing an unprecedented communicative void from those in power. "We are a country not only politically leaderless but also without discourse, with our throats cut," he declared.
The analyst, with an ironic tone, does not rule out the possibility that El Cangrejo could become that historical figure. In fact, he goes further: "El Cangrejo can be the Gorbachev and could be the first Cuban Nobel Peace Prize winner. It could be El Cangrejo, but he has to start."
The condition imposed by Pardo Lazo is specific and does not require access to state television. "He has to take the microphones on YouTube. He doesn't need to be on Cuban television at all. On YouTube, he should say: 'I am El Cangrejo. I've been through this, I've seen crimes and others that we don't consider crimes because of historical circumstances,'" he described.
The message that Pardo Lazo expects from that voice is equally clear: "They have to tell him: at this moment, we have failed. It is unfair to say that it has been 67 years of failures. But at this moment, we have failed."
For the analyst, the true Cuban Gorbachev would have a very specific military profile. "That would be the Cuban Gorbachev: the military who would say, 'The Armed Forces never went out into the streets to kill Cubans. It was the Ministry of the Interior,'" he noted, drawing a distinction between the role of the FAR and that of the MININT.
The Crab has emerged as a figure of increasing international visibility in recent months. In February 2026, secret meetings with Secretary of State Marco Rubio were revealed, and in May, the CIA director met with him in Havana. In March, he was photographed sitting among members of the Political Bureau, an image interpreted as evidence of the real power Raúl Castro continues to wield through his grandson.
Pardo Lazo frames all of this in his diagnosis of the current Cuban situation. "There is no longer a revolution in Cuba, there is no longer a dictatorship. What exists is a regime disconnected from reality that cannot provide water, health care, electricity, education, sports, or television. It cannot provide anything."
The analyst recalls Ricardo Lagos's historic speech on Chilean television on April 25, 1988, when the then-opposition leader pointed his finger at Pinochet and declared he was speaking "for 15 years of silence," as a model for the impact a similar intervention could have from within the Cuban regime.
"That person is going to gain two million followers on the first day and will become a total symbolic force," concluded Pardo Lazo.
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