Posters and graffiti with protest messages appeared this Monday at the bus stops in the Micro 7 neighborhood of Santiago de Cuba, according to images shared by independent journalist Yosmany Mayeta Labrada.
The inscriptions include phrases such as "We want food, electricity," "Freedom," and "Down with Díaz-Canel," handwritten on the structures of the bus stops. Alongside the messages, the initials "MAC" appear repeatedly, the meaning and authorship of which remain unidentified. So far, no one has been reported detained or investigated for the graffiti.
The graffiti appeared amid an electricity crisis that has particularly impacted Santiago de Cuba in recent weeks. The province was the last to reconnect to the National Electric System after the total collapse recorded on August 2, and experienced a second disconnection the following day during the restoration process.
Before that collapse, the local Electric Company had already reorganized electricity outages into nine rotating blocks, leaving some neighborhoods with barely one or two hours of electricity a day —blackouts that could last up to 22 consecutive hours—.
The slogans displayed on the walls of Micro 7 are not new in Santiago de Cuba. On June 12, residents of the José Martí Urban Center took to the streets demanding electricity, food, and freedom, and in June and July, several pots and pans protests were recorded with the same demands. The Cuban Conflict Observatory counted 18 protests in the province alone during June.
The visual protest through posters also has direct precedents in the city. In January of this year, asign featuring an image of Díaz-Canel covered in black paint appeared at the intersection of Trocha and Avenida 12 de Agosto, and in Marchposters against communism emerged near the Universidad de Oriente. In June, the Observatory recorded a record of 41 anti-government graffiti and murals across Cuba, the highest monthly figure since September 2020.
The discontent in Santiago is part of a wave of protests that has shaken the entire island. According to data from the Cuban Conflict Observatory reported by Infobae, July 2026 marked a historic record of 1,415 expressions of protest nationwide, the highest number ever recorded.
Mayeta Labrada himself pointed out that the message "We want food, electricity" turns one of the main daily needs of the population into a public expression of discontent, while the references to "Freedom" and against Miguel Díaz-Canel give it "an openly political content."
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