The Cuban economist Mauricio de Miranda, a member of the Cuba Transformación group, warned this Monday that if the economic reforms announced by the regime of Díaz-Canel are implemented without democratic political transformations, Cuba could replicate the model of authoritarian and patrimonial capitalism that emerged in Russia after the Soviet collapse.
According to De Miranda, this measure carries a structural risk that the government has not addressed: "With what laws, with what regulations, what will the mechanisms for transparency be? How will it be prevented that public resources are captured by a specific group of people associated with power or others who have enriched themselves through connections to power?" the economist asked in an interview with Tania Costa on CiberCuba.
Mauricio de Miranda's diagnosis points directly to the political system. "The danger that these transformations occur within the context of a single-party authoritarian political regime, lacking democracy and, therefore, lacking social control, is that it would create conditions for the capture of the state by oligarchic groups emerging from familial ties with the power structures, along with the bureaucratic class that has governed the country for all these years."
The economist rejects the notion that what the regime proposes is comparable to Soviet Perestroika. "Some people believe this is Perestroika. It is nothing like Perestroika. Perestroika was something else, something totally and completely different," he stated, clarifying that what is taking shape is "a leap into authoritarian and patrimonial capitalism similar to what was established in Russia during the Yeltsin era and has continued under Putin."
This risk is not merely theoretical. The conglomerate GAESA, controlled by the Cuban Armed Forces and sanctioned by the U.S., which accuses it of holding $18 billion in seized assets, is not mentioned in the 176 measures proposed by Díaz-Canel, and this is one of the most criticized points by independent economists.
The package of 176 measures approved on June 19 by the National Assembly includes, among its most controversial points, the conversion of state-owned enterprises into joint-stock companies, which would allow for the purchase of shares by private individuals, non-state actors, and foreign capital.
The organization Food Monitor Program also warned about the risk of crony capitalism if the sale of shares in state-owned enterprises is conducted without transparent bidding, in line with Mauricio de Miranda's warning.
De Miranda is part of Cuba Transformación, a group of five independent economists, supported by Cuba Study Group and the Observatory on the Cuban Economy—alongside Pedro Monreal, Pavel Vidal, Omar Everleny, and Ricardo Torres—who has been working since March 2026 on a proposal to overcome the crisis in Cuba, structured in three phases: emergency stabilization, productive and institutional recovery, and medium and long-term development.
The group proposes a model of social market economy, but Mauricio de Miranda emphasizes that this model has one non-negotiable condition: "This social market economy must be achieved and built within a political and institutional context characteristic of a democratic rule of law."
Cuba Transformación operates independently from the government and does not work for the advisory team convened by Díaz-Canel on June 17, although one of its members, Omar Everleny, was indeed called by the regime as an external advisor.
The complete proposal for the first phase of stabilization, with a timeframe of two to three years, was scheduled to be published in the weeks following the interview.
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