The Cuban comedian and actor Ulises Toirac once again questioned the regime's priorities by contrasting the deterioration of basic services such as electricity, telecommunications, water, and gas with the resources allocated to the police and repressive apparatus.
Do you want less dissent? Invest in: electricity, communications, water, gas... not police, and you will see how you have fewer surprises, Toirac wrote this Tuesday in a Facebook post.
The comment arose from a much more common difficulty: the issues that, as he reported, ETECSA was experiencing in processing transfers through Transfermóvil, at a time when obtaining cash is also challenging for many Cubans.
"Moreover, now ETECSA is experiencing difficulties with transfers when trying to pay through Transfermóvil. Seriously? With cash being so tough to come by, not even at the bank?!" he questioned.
But Toirac quickly took the complaint about the service to a political level. The comedian contrasted the consequences faced by those who protest or express critical opinions with the lack of visible accountability for deficient state services that affect millions of people.
«¿A man with a sign is jailed, they restrict the freedom of a young woman for expressing her thoughts, they ask for 10 years from anyone who disagrees... And no one jails those responsible for a terrible service that causes immense and additional discomfort to people?», he wrote.
It was then that he summarized his argument with a direct recommendation to the authorities: if they want to reduce discontent and dissent, they should focus resources on addressing the problems that daily affect the population instead of prioritizing the police.
"Listen up, buddy," he stated before listing electricity, communications, water, and gas as areas where, in his opinion, state investment should be focused.
The message maintains a line that Toirac has developed over the past few months: attributing a significant portion of the rising social discontent to unresolved internal issues and questioning whether the government response prioritizes control over solutions.
In July, for example, he directly questioned the repression against dissenting voices and called for the release of political prisoners.
"If the people's support for his leadership is overwhelmingly majority, why are the few and negligible dissenting voices being repressed and imprisoned?" he asked then.
The crisis in public services, particularly electricity, has also taken up a significant portion of their criticisms.
In September, he held the Cuban government accountable for decades of poor decisions in energy policy and dismissed the notion that the situation of the National Electric System can be solely explained by U.S. sanctions.
Just before, he had responded with irony to Miguel Díaz-Canel after the leader denied that Cuba was in collapse. Toirac then wrote: "How nice it is to be able to say 'Cuba has not collapsed,' right?".
The state telecommunications company also appears in its publications for the first time. In July, it questioned what had happened to the money collected by ETECSA after the increase in rates, amid connectivity issues and outages related to blackouts.
In August, he was even more direct and called for the company to reinvest its earnings to improve the service or to allow the entry of alternatives like Starlink.
On that occasion, he warned the company that it was contributing to the "popular anger."
Related videos:
Filed under: