THE Cuba turned the page today, leaving behind the era of the Castro brothers, with the retirement of 89-year-old Raul, in a strong symbolic movement that does not change anything in the political line of the country, one of the last communist regimes in the world.
As expected, President Miguel Dias-Canel Bermundes was elected first secretary of the Central Committee of the Cuban Communist Party, as announced via Twitter, on the last day of his four-day conference.
“April 19 is a historic day,” the 60-year-old president wrote earlier on the same platform. These days mark the 60th anniversary of the invasion of Pig Bay, the failed CIA-backed military operation whose repulsion is a matter of national pride for the island.
“The centenarian generation, the founder and leader of the Party, is handing over responsibilities,” he added to a younger generation.
The new Central Committee, elected by the party’s 300 delegates, appointed the new 14-member Politburo.
The transfer of power comes at a critical time for Cuba, which is facing the worst economic crisis in 30 years due to the pandemic and the strengthening of the US embargo, which has been in place since 1962.
Most of the 11.2 million Cubans have never met a leader on the country’s reins other than Castro: initially Fidel, in recent years his brother, Raoul.
“I have only known one party since I was born,” said Miguel Gainsa, a 59-year-old craftsman who works in a historic Havana neighborhood. “And no one dies of hunger, that is true,” he added. But today “we are somewhat cramped and it is a pity that Fidel died because he solved all the problems”, he stressed.
Miguel Dias-Canel himself was not born in 1959, the year of the Cuban Revolution. The president and new first secretary of the Party embodies the new generation that is more “connected” to the internet, but not necessarily more flexible. When he took over the presidency in April 2018, a lot was written about the fact that he had chosen to ride a bike while working in the countryside, about the jeans he wore, about his passion for the Beatles, about the tablets he used… It was a fact that had a much more modern style, compared to the Castro brothers.
Dias-Canel was not known to the general public until then. He built his entire career within the Party, gradually climbing all the steps of the hierarchy. He has been the head of local organizations, then Minister of Higher Education and then Vice President, since 2013. He has studied electronic engineering, served for three years in an anti-aircraft missile unit and is the first civilian to assume the presidency of the country.
“We have talked many times,” said Harold Cardenas, a political analyst and director of the online media La Joven Cuba. When the site was threatened with closure in 2013, “he came to see us, we took pictures together and he publicly supported us,” he added. On this occasion, “we met up close a compromise Dias-Canel, who understands technology,” he said.
After taking power, however, the tone changed: in late December, he described the independent Cuban media as “mercenary”, accusing them of spreading “lies”.
“It would be difficult for Dias-Canel to appear conciliatory towards Trump (the then US president) who for four years pursued perhaps the most aggressive policy of the last 60 years towards Cuba,” Cardenas admitted. In general, “generational change does not guarantee” that there will be an opening, because “the fastest way to secure political legitimacy is to show an iron fist,” he said.
As president, he followed a line of government based on one principle: his constant presence, either in person, with many trips to the province, or online, opening a Twitter account, where he is very active. He also takes care of his image and to date has given only one interview to a foreign media outlet on Venezuela’s Telesur TV channel, where he showed a more human face, alongside his wife, Lis Cuesta, who has taken over the unprecedented the revolution, the role of the first lady.
Dias-Canel has two children from his first marriage and his friends describe him as a simple and intimate man who “knows how to listen”.
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