Roberto Morales Ojeda, Secretary of Organization of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba, published a message on Friday on his Facebook account, reaffirming the official discourse on popular participation, social justice, and inclusion, in reference to the meeting that President Miguel Díaz-Canel held on Thursday, October 1 with representatives of organizations, groups, and institutions linked to the so-called 176 Economic and Social Transformations.
In his post on social media, the official who is a member of the Political Bureau declared that “in Cuba, popular participation is and will be the strongest pillar of unity and a guarantee of sovereignty” and echoed Díaz-Canel's statement that “social justice is not defended through speeches; it is defended by institutions that work toward social justice.”
Morales Ojeda also asserted that, "despite the blockade and the energy siege, Cuba continues to work towards a fairer, more inclusive, and supportive society."
The meeting on October 1, moderated by the Minister of Labor and Social Security, Jesús Otamendiz Campos, also included Esteban Lazo Hernández, President of the National Assembly, Vice Prime Minister Eduardo Martínez Díaz, and Morales Ojeda himself. Díaz-Canel emphasized there that the 176 transformations—approved by the National Assembly in June 2026— are guided by the principle of social justice, and that economic growth only makes sense if it contributes to social development.
The problem is that the Cuban reality of 2026 seems determined to disprove each of those statements. CEPAL projects a decline of 10.3% in Cuba's GDP this year, the worst in all of Latin America. Year-on-year inflation reached 25.19% in August, and the dollar surpassed 700 Cuban pesos in the informal market, while the average monthly salary hovers around 7,000 pesos on the island, which is less than 11 dollars.
Extreme poverty now affects 94% of Cubans, while eight out of ten people have had to skip a meal due to a lack of money or food, according to data from a recent report prepared by the Cuban Observatory of Human Rights (OCDH) and the Cuba Social Rights Observatory.
This economic photograph is compounded by the energy crisis: generation deficits that have repeatedly exceeded 2,000 MW and frequent blackouts lasting over 20 hours a day in many areas of the country. Cuba has experienced eight national blackouts so far this year, and regular access to drinking water is a distant dream for approximately 2.7 million people.
The response from internet users to Morales Ojeda's post was as emphatic as it was predictable. One summed up the general sentiment with a phrase that leaves no room for nuance: "No one believes you anymore, how are you going to move forward? It's 67 years of promises and lies." Another asked sarcastically, "What social justice is there if everyday people are becoming poorer while our leaders are getting richer and fatter? For us, it's just creative resistance." A third individual was even more direct: "Participation without the right to make decisions, hee hee hee."
Some questioned the very semantics of the official discourse. "For you, Robertico, what is popular participation? If no one knows anything about what you all do," wrote another user. And yet another pointed out the structural contradiction of the system: "With just one party?!!!"
A comment that Facebook hid was perhaps the most revealing: "Yes, you participate and they enjoy the money, for you the misery is the fault of the blockade, the fault of the cyclone, the fault of the frozen rivers in Canada, or the fault of the lack of water in the Panama Canal [...] if you don’t participate, you end up in jail... the government of our island is horrible."
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