Transition to the Spanish model, yes, but for real. Irreversible

Some time ago, I wrote an article about the Spanish Transition: I argued that it should be a model for Cuba. I still believe we should reflect on what happened in Spain during that crucial moment in its history.

Since then, I have been told on multiple occasions that precisely because I defended that transition, I now have to accept that in Cuba there is "forgiveness and not vengeance." As if praising the Spanish model obliges me to swallow anything that is dressed up with that name here. It is therefore important to state it clearly and in writing.

While the Francoist government of Spain used its legality to open the cage, the Cuban dictatorship used its own to weld the bars.

I, and I believe that many exiles and Cubans living outside the island, are willing to transition to a more Spanish style. We are not afraid of dialogue or reconciliation. What we will not accept is being sold a cat for a hare.

Because a genuine transition to a Spanish-style democracy is not what the dictatorship is offering, and it is important to explain why.

What the Spanish Transition really was

Let’s remember how it happened, because "transition" is used far too loosely. In Spain, there wasn’t a transition followed by laws: the laws were the transition.

After Franco's death in 1975, it was the regime's own apparatus that approved, in 1976, the Law for Political Reform.

The Francoist Cortes —not elected, made up of men from the regime— voted on a text that dismantled the system they themselves were part of. Hence the phrase that summarizes that process: Francoism was overcome "from law to law."

And then came the essential:

• The legalization of political parties, including the Communist Party, the historical enemy of the regime.
• Free and competitive elections in 1977.
• A Constitution in 1978.

The power that had ruled for forty years relinquished control. It submitted to the vote. It accepted that it could lose.

That is a transition. Not a change of names at the top. Not an economic opening with the same people in charge. A genuine, legal, and irreversible relinquishment of political power.

What Cuba offers is not that

In Cuba, nothing like this has happened, and not by chance. What we have witnessed are changes within the same dictatorship. Fidel handed power to Raúl. Raúl passed the presidency to Díaz-Canel but retained the Party. Then he handed over the Party. The names changed; who is in charge and how they rule did not.

And when the regime has tampered with the laws, it has done so in the opposite direction to that of Spain. The Constitution of 2019 did not open the system: it fortified it. It declared the "irrevocable" socialist nature and enshrined the Communist Party as the sole ruling force. While Franco's government in Spain used its legality to open the cage, the Cuban dictatorship used its own to weld the bars.

Now there is talk of economic reforms, of small and medium enterprises, of private banking, of exile investment. And we are asked to see this as the beginning of change. But let’s take a closer look at what is changing and what is not. The economy is being opened up while political power remains intact, in the hands of the same military-business complex as always.

That is precisely the point: as long as power remains concentrated in the same hands, any opening is a concession, not a right.

The model being drawn is not the Spanish one; it is the Chinese or Vietnamese model, where the market opens but the single party continues to suppress, without elections, without a free press, without legal opposition. The leadership does not leave power: it transforms into the owner of the new economy, now shielded with foreign capital interested in ensuring that nothing changes politically.

Why forgiveness requires change first

Here is the crux of the matter, and I want to say it bluntly. In order for us to forgive, we must first embrace change. Without change, there can be no forgiveness. And that is not vengeance.

The distinction between justice and vengeance is accurate, and that is precisely why what we demand is justice. Vengeance would be punishing for the sake of punishment. Justice is to demand that those who held power for more than six decades acknowledge the harm they caused, stop doing so, and guarantee that it will not happen again. This has a name in any serious reconciliation process: truth, acknowledgment, and guarantees of non-repetition. It is not resentment. It is the minimum condition for forgiveness to hold any meaning.

A pardon granted to someone who continues to do exactly the same thing reconciles nothing; it merely whitewashes. Forgiving a regime that continues to imprison, that continues to deny, and that has not acknowledged a single one of its wrongdoings would be to forgive in vain. It would be to declare a wound closed that the perpetrator intentionally keeps open.

That's why those who accuse us of being vengeful shift the burden. They ask us, the ones who have been harmed, to forgive first, as the price of entry, while those who have inflicted pain for sixty-seven years have not lifted a finger. But the first step does not belong to the victim. It belongs to the one who holds the power and caused the damage. This was the case in Spain: the gesture of openness came from those in authority. Forgiveness came afterward. Never the other way around.

What we ask of the regime is exactly what Franco's regime did in 1976: to recognize that what it has built is negative. To admit that the Cuban political system is bad, that it is not democratic, that it does not grant rights to Cubans. And that it is the regime itself —as the Spanish regime did— that should create the laws to dismantle itself: legalize parties, including the opposition and the platforms of exile; call for free and competitive elections; release political prisoners; open the press; and remove that deceptive word, "irrevocable," from the Constitution.

Cosmetic changes are not a transition

And here is the reason why I reject what is being offered today. Cosmetic changes are not acceptable, and they are not for one specific reason: they are not indefinite, they are optional. They can go backwards whenever they want, just as they have always done.

The Cuban regime has opened and closed its grip so many times that we know the mechanism by now. It decriminalizes the dollar and then goes after it. It tolerates a market space and then suffocates it. It allows a safety valve and then closes it when the pressure decreases. Each concession is reversible because none are guaranteed by a law they do not control. And that is precisely the point: as long as power remains concentrated in the same hands, any opening is a loan, not a right. And what is lent can be taken back.

A true transition is defined by this: by being irreversible. By placing power in a position where the one in charge today can no longer reclaim it at will.

That was what Spain did when it subjected Francoism to a vote and accepted alternation. What Cuba offers is the opposite: changes that depend on the goodwill of those who have been demonstrating for sixty-seven years that they lack it, and who reserve the right to backtrack whenever they wish.

We are ready, but truly

Let it be clear, we are not closed to dialogue. We do not want bloodshed, we do not want revenge, we do not want a Cuba of winners and losers. We are open to reconciliation and to a transition similar to Spain's. We desire a new Cuba where everyone can participate, including those who are on the other side today.

We will be told that demanding change first condemns the transition to never happening, because that ruling class will never repent of its own accord. But we do not ask for sentimental remorse, tears, or confessions over coffee. Only a concrete legal gesture, such as the Political Reform Law of 1976: a legal act that opens the system and is impossible to reverse. If that gesture does not come, the problem is not what we are asking for: it is the lack of will from those who prefer to continue in power rather than return the country to the Cubans. Let it not be said that we are obstructing a transition that is being refused to start by them, and only them.

The rest—the economic makeup, the reversible opening, the "let's look ahead" that boldly skips over the acknowledgment of guilt—is not a transition. It is the old dictatorship with new, kinder vocabulary, more presentable to investors. And to that, with all due respect and the utmost willingness for dialogue, we cannot say yes.

Because forgiving without change is not generosity; it is surrender. And we do not seek revenge. We simply ask that those who have struck us for sixty-seven years finally acknowledge that what they did was wrong, and that they demonstrate this by relinquishing their power. On that day, there will be a transition. And on that day, we will gladly talk about forgiveness.