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The Cuban comedian Ulises Toirac launched this Thursday on Facebook a satirical contest inviting people to "name the New Measures" announced by the regime, a direct mockery of the new package of economic reforms presented by the regime.
The rules of the contest are as ironic as they are precise: the proposed name cannot include words like "error," "rectification," "overcoming," or "reordering," terms that the Cuban government has repeated for decades in successive packages of measures that have never resolved the country's structural crisis.
It cannot be a proparoxytone phrase nor contain words with more than six syllables, "so that it can be written and repeated without errors by the most modest of online fighters," according to the rules set out by Toirac.
The third requirement directly addresses the official discourse: the chosen name must convey "trust, security, and absolute certainty that NOW, DAMN IT, it’s for real."
The prizes of the competition are perhaps the most cutting part of the text, as they all revolve around the energy crisis that is crushing Cuba in 2026.
The gold medal is awarded for a "solar cell plant capable of 30 hours of blackout at maximum load"; the silver medal, for an Ecoflow "that provides six hours of blackout while powering two fans, a refrigerator, a television, and charging four mobile phones."
The bronze winner receives "an electrogenerator bicycle capable of powering a fan," with a suggestion in parentheses: "that points to the person pedaling."
The reference is not casual. Cuba is experiencing one of the worst energy crises in its recent history, with power outages lasting up to 22 hours daily in Havana, an electrical deficit that exceeded 2,174 MW during the peak hours on May 14, and a total disconnection of the national electrical system on March 16, the sixth in 18 months.
The contest comes days after Toirac had already voiced his opinion on the reforms just as emphatically. On June 15, he wrote that the measures arrive "late and reluctantly" and that "they won't work today either," arguing that the entrepreneurial diaspora is already disillusioned by the regime's unpaid debts.
On the same day, when some users referred to him as a "mercenary" for his criticisms, he responded with his usual humor: "Look at my belly! No one can be paying me."
The package that Toirac satirizes was endorsed this Thursday by the extraordinary plenary of the Central Committee of the PCC and includes more than 20 measures: greater municipal autonomy, opening up to foreign investment in small and medium enterprises, elimination of state intermediation in foreign trade, reduction of ministries from 27 to between 20 and 21, and allowing Cubans residing abroad to invest in the island.
Díaz-Canel justified the shift with a phrase that the regime itself disseminated: "reality imposes changes on us."
Toirac has been using social media for months to highlight the gap between official discourse and the everyday life of Cubans. In May, he criticized the government for prioritizing the campaign "My Signature for the Homeland" over solving power outages, and in June, he warned that the Social Communication Law acts as a "Damocles' sword" over comedians due to its subjective application.
Díaz-Canel himself acknowledged this Thursday, during the plenary session of the Central Committee, that there are “obstacles that do not come from outside or from the blockade”, an unusual admission that did not prevent Toirac's contest from circulating as the most accurate summary of what many Cubans think about yet another promise of change.
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