The Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla dismissed any possibility of political opening on the Island and strongly defended the one-party system during an exclusive interview with NBC News, held on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York.
In response to the direct question from correspondent Andrea Mitchell about whether Cuba would consider transitioning to a multiparty system with free elections, Rodríguez replied with a phrase that summarizes Havana's official position: "We feel very comfortable with the constitutional order that, unlike the United States, has been chosen and confirmed by the Cuban citizens in several referendums with universal participation."
The interview took place one day after President Trump described Cuba as a "failed state" at the General Assembly and pledged that "freedom will enter Cuba." The Cuban delegation left the room in protest during that speech.
Rodríguez constructed his defense of the Cuban model by contrasting it with the American system, which he implicitly labeled as a plutocracy.
There are no billionaires in the Cuban Parliament, but there is a majority of women, representatives from all sectors of society, and even students chosen directly and freely by voters without the mediation of political parties," he stated.
The chancellor insisted that in Cuba "there are no electoral political parties, but rather direct popular participation" and that "it is not money or corporations that influence the Cuban electoral process."
What Rodríguez omitted is that the Cuban Constitution of 2019 enshrines the Communist Party of Cuba as the "superior leading political force of society and the State" and declares socialism as "irrevocable." In practice, there is no legal political opposition, candidates are filtered by commissions linked to the party, and pluralistic electoral campaigns are not allowed.
To deflect criticism of the one-party model, the chancellor resorted to the argument of democratic relativism: "We should not accept the existence of only one model of thought or one electoral democratic model in the world," he said, noting that Washington maintains "excellent relations" with countries that have different political systems. "Why apply a different standard to Cuba?" he asked.
This is not the first time Rodríguez has employed this type of argumentation. In May, he already described Cuba as a "different democracy" in an interview with ABC News, in which he also denied the existence of political prisoners on the Island.
During the same interview, the chancellor responded to the statements made by Secretary of State Marco Rubio—who asserted that there are figures from the regime that the U.S. "will never be able to work with" because they have blood on their hands—with a brief "he's lying, he's lying again."
Rodríguez also confirmed that there have been diplomatic contacts between both governments, although without concrete results, and attributed the stagnation to the “misunderstanding and restrictive attitude of the U.S. side”. When asked if Raúl Castro's grandson participates in those conversations, he declined to answer directly.
Rubio, for his part, pointed out that Cuba has a "golden opportunity" to change its course, although he warned: “You do not reverse over 60 years of mismanagement, corruption, and incompetence in six months.”
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