The jurist and academic René Fidel González García published this Sunday, from Santiago de Cuba, a new political reflection on his Facebook profile in which he calls for the construction of a "new policy" for Cuba, based on dignity, respect, and the full exercise of rights and freedoms.
In the text, the Doctor of Legal Sciences and former tenured professor at the University of Oriente argues that Cuban politics must undergo a fundamental transformation. "To be new, [...] politics in Cuba must stop normalizing catharsis and vulgarity as discourse [...] and be, with serenity and coherence, a proposal directed at Cubans to dismiss and de-hierarchize the use of contempt, rudeness, and fallacies as reactions or political arguments," the essayist wrote.
González García affirms that change is not optional: "It is impossible to claim to be different without changing. This is precisely what being a true alternative to what is opposed involves – offering a political framework that allows us to permanently eliminate exclusion among ourselves, to rise out of underdevelopment, and to ensure that the exercise of rights and freedoms leads us to dignity, happiness, and respect."
It also warns that without genuine renewal, any political proposal will be nothing more than another form of degradation: "The new politics must be new or it will simply be — not even the last — degradation of what humiliates and despises us, of what denigrates us and excludes us in the same way." The project, he adds, requires a different kind of actor: "The new politics needs new politicians — neither angels nor sanctimonious individuals, and certainly less hypocritical — just people who know how to practice what they say they believe."
The publication from this Sunday is part of a sustained series of critical statements throughout 2026. In July, the jurist stated that Cubans today have fewer rights and freedoms than in 1953, under Batista's dictatorship. In August, he introduced the concept of "political indigence" to describe the exclusion faced by most Cubans and warned that "political indigence inevitably leads to economic and social indigence."
During the past month of September, the academic diagnosed a “structural and irreversible disconnection” between the regime and the citizens, and at the beginning of Octoberdescribed Cuba as a society “paralyzed by political underdevelopment”.
González García was dismissed from his teaching position at the University of Oriente in 2016 after publishing critical articles in independent media. The institution claimed that his texts lacked scientific merit; he and human rights organizations denounced this as political retaliation.
Their reflections arrive at a moment of unprecedented structural crisis. The Cuban Observatory of Human Rights estimated in August 2026 that 94% of Cubans live in extreme poverty —nine percentage points higher than in 2025— based on 1,318 interviews across 79 municipalities. A study by economist Javier Pérez Capdevila estimated that an individual needs at least 96,060 Cuban pesos per month to meet basic needs, roughly 13 times the average salary.
In terms of repression, Prisoners Defenders documented 1,372 political prisoners as of October 1, 2026 —a historical record number—.
In that context, González García's commitment to a "new policy" that moves away from exclusion takes on a significance that goes beyond theoretical debate; it is also a direct response to the reality faced by millions of Cubans every day.
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