Miguel Díaz-Canel once again defended the Cuban electoral system as democratic in a segment of the documentary 'Cuba After Castro', where he claimed that he was chosen from the grassroots level and that the Cuban model is "more democratic than what is done in other parts of the world."
The excerpt belongs to an in-depth interview that Díaz-Canel granted to American journalists, included in the documentary directed by Abby Martin and Matthew Belen for BreakThrough News, a leftist alternative media organization.
In the video, Díaz-Canel stated that without being elected in a Cuban district, he could not hold the presidency: «I couldn’t be speaking with you as the president of the country if I hadn’t been elected in a district of a city in this country».
The leader designated by Raúl Castro also stated that the indirect parliamentary vote to elect key positions is not exclusive to Cuba: "There are other countries, even powers, that do it and no one mentions that they are undemocratic. The problem with Cuba is that it is a particular case".
According to Díaz-Canel, criticisms of the system are part of an orchestrated campaign: "The media machinery of the United States government does not want the example of Cuba with that type of democracy. It is not the democracy they want."
What Díaz-Canel omitted is that in Cuba the candidates are pre-selected by commissions affiliated with the PCC before being put to a vote, on single lists with only one candidate per seat, without any real electoral competition or party pluralism.
Díaz-Canel was not elected by direct popular vote: the National Assembly appointed him president on April 19, 2018, following the "recommendations" of Raúl Castro, who saw him as the appropriate successor to formally represent Castroism and ensure its "continuity." He was confirmed on October 10, 2019, under the new Constitution.
It is not the first time that the Cuban leader has made such statements. In June 2025, he denied to Brazilian journalist Breno Altman that Cuba is a dictatorship and declared that "the fact that we are a single party does not mean we are less democratic or less participative."
In December 2021, he asserted before the National Assembly that Cuba was "the most democratic country in this world," and in February 2023, he maintained that the elections demonstrated the "democratic health" of the system because there were only changes in candidates in "one or two municipalities."
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