Laritza Diversent, lawyer and director of Cubalex, was emphatic at the conclusion of a live interview with Tania Costa on CiberCuba: 2026 marks "the beginning of the end" of the Cuban regime and the start of a transition that, she warns, must be managed wisely to avoid repeating the mistakes of the past.
In response to the question of whether the regime will collapse on its own or if it needs to be overthrown, Diversent did not choose a single path. "It can’t take any more. I believe the population is saying it, sooner or later," he replied, leaving open the possibility of both routes: spontaneous collapse and active overthrow.
His diagnosis of the current situation was straightforward. "The beginning of the end is this year. I don’t know if it’ll be in the summer because summer is already upon us, but it is this year. The beginning of the end, the start of the transition, and the end of this thing we’re living through."
However, Diversent warned that the fall of the regime does not automatically equate to the arrival of democracy. "The question is whether we are prepared for what that change entails. That's one point: we shouldn’t have a transition without a plan," he noted, using the colloquial expression to refer to an improvised or directionless transition.
The lawyer was emphatic in dismantling the idea that political change happens overnight. "Transition is not a process that lasts a year or happens from one day to the next. Get that out of your head. The transition can last 10, 20 years, or even more," she stated, citing Russia and the countries of the former Soviet Union as examples, many of which are still undergoing political transformation decades later.
The greatest danger that Diversent is concerned about is the possibility of repeating the pattern of 1959, when Cuba transitioned from Batista's dictatorship to a totalitarian regime without society perceiving it as such at the time. If civil society does not prepare and discuss how that transition should take place now, they warned, that cycle could close in on itself once again.
During the live broadcast, a comment in the chat starkly illustrated the situation on the island. A user identified as Telvia wrote: "Water never comes in." Diversent took this as a symbol of the state of the crisis: "Food, water, and electricity, that's all they're asking for. And that tells you at what level of indignity the Cuban population is living today."
This context of collapse is verifiable through concrete figures. In June 2026, 107 street protests were recorded in Cuba, nearly double the previous maximum, according to the Cuban Conflict Observatory.
The power outages have reached 87 consecutive hours in Matanzas and up to 35 continuous hours in Havana. The CEPAL projects a contraction of the Cuban GDP of -6.5% in 2026, the most severe in the entire region.
In that context, Cubalex has denounced that the release announcements made by the regime are selective and reversible, and that the mass pardon of April 2026 —which benefited more than 2,000 inmates— did not include political prisoners.
Diversent concluded with a commitment from exile. "At Cubalex, we are constantly working for the situation in that country to change, and when it does, we will not leave them alone."
The Cuban opposition has presented a four-phase transition roadmap —release of prisoners, stabilization, reconstruction, and free elections— in a context where, according to Diversent, the regime has no intention of relinquishing power. “This is a matter of privileges, of money, which is all tied up here,” he concluded.
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