Five years after Fidel Castro’s death, a game of thrones is under way in Cuba.
Castro’s legacy continues shaping much of the communist island’s political and economic system. And his thought is the prevailing doctrine of the Communist Party. Yet the aura surrounding Castro that shaped much of the narrative during his life has lost appeal among younger generations concerned with the country’s present and future. Instead, many Cubans have joined the opposition ranks, clashing directly in unprecedented protests with the government of current leader Miguel Díaz-Canel.
Díaz-Canel ascended to power after Castro’s brother Raúl retired from government in 2018 — though he continues having the last word on the country’s most important decisions. But the “younger Castro” turned 90 this year, and Díaz-Canel is now facing new threats to his rule as government and Communist Party leader.
While Díaz-Canel fights for his political survival amid criticism of his government’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, soaring inflation and a more visible opposition, a dethroned politician and a powerful general recently made surprising moves that suggest Cuban elites are looking ahead to a post-Castro era when the government’s top positions might be up for grabs.
Former vice president Carlos Lage unexpectedly came back from 12 years in the political limbo that Cubans jokingly refer to as el plan pijama — “the pajamas plan” — in a video leaked to social media, in which he presents himself as an alternative to Díaz-Canel. And powerful general Luis Alberto Rodríguez López-Calleja, who controls the vast military-economic conglomerate known as GAESA, became a member of the National Assembly overnight, clearing the path to seek political positions requiring membership in Cuba’s version of a parliament.
But Castro’s heirs and wannabes have to grapple with a changed reality: An opposition movement is taking roots among the population, posing for the first time in many decades, a significant challenge to the Communist Party and its determination to keep ruling as if Castro had not died.
The comeback reformer
Lage was known as the “reform czar” during the 1990s when he helped Fidel Castro implement small market reforms to survive the collapse of the Soviet Union. But he dramatically fell out of favor when Raúl Castro took over for his sick brother Fidel and substituted “fidelistas” with his own cadre of loyalist generals and old-guard figures.
A video at the time, shown only to selected members of communist organizations, included surveillance footage of Lage, former foreign minister Felipe Pérez Roque and other top officials making jokes about Fidel Castro, who had several emergency surgeries and handed power to Raúl in 2006, and questioning Raúl’s ability to govern, the Miami Herald reported at the time.
In an opinion column in the official party newspaper Granma, Fidel Castro called their behavior “undignified” and said they had succumbed to the “honey of power.”
Lage was sent to work at a local clinic in Havana and faded into oblivion. Until now.
In a carefully edited video, purportedly created to celebrate his 70th birthday on Oct. 15, Lage’s voice is heard narrating over photos of his life, many with leftist leaders like Fidel Castro, Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez and Bolivia’s Evo Morales. Reminiscent of a campaign ad, the video portrays Lage as a family man, a dedicated revolutionary and a political figure who is still receiving “innumerable gestures of support and respect.”
But his comeback pitch is this: Deeper reforms are needed to keep the revolution alive, and he is willing to help.
“I trust the revolution, and I believe that socialism is a fairer and more humane society,” he said. “And in our case, the only way to be independent as a nation and worthy as a people. Although such a socialism can only be reached with far more profound changes than in the last 20 years. It is inescapable to cross supposed limits and take risks.
“That is what is truly revolutionary now,” Lage added.
Because Díaz-Canel has centered his brand on “continuity” (he usually tweets the hashtag #somoscontinuidad) Lage’s video seems to cater to those who believe there’s space for a reformer within the ruling Communist Party.
But to assure hard-liners he is not campaigning as a Cuban version of Mikhail Gorbachev, whose leadership led to the fall of the Soviet Union, he states that, “Faced with any dilemma that arises in the future, whatever the causes, I will be on the side of the revolution.”
Lage dedicated a chunk of his narrative to praising Fidel Castro and said his admiration for the late Cuban leader was “unchangeable.” Missing in the video was any reference to Raúl Castro, who was directly responsible for his dismissal. Though Díaz-Canel is also not mentioned, Lage’s opening words in the video include a sarcastic remark on inflation, a veiled reference to the failure of the currency unification and monetary reform under the new leader.
Lage’s video instantly generated debate and speculation about the true intentions of its release.
Singer-songwriter Silvio Rodríguez, a long-term supporter of the Cuban revolution, praised Lage and said on a Facebook post that he was “motivated” by the fact the former official was advocating for changes while at the same time defending socialism and the revolution.
But few believe that the video was made without the tacit or explicit consent of state security or people in a position of power, since the former vice president has kept silent during all these years under close government surveillance.
“They do sometimes like to throw a curveball and survey the population to see what people think, but I doubt Raúl or anyone would rescue a 70-year-old defenestrated politician who was accused of corruption,” said Emilio Morales, the president of the Miami-based Havana Consulting Group.
Activists and dissidents warned that the video was a trial balloon by the regime to distract from the opposition movement seeking to change the political system on the island.
Others have pointed to Lage’s unpopularity during his tenure as secretary of the council of ministers and vice president between 1993 and 2009. He was responsible for measures that kept the country financially afloat but severely affected the population and generated deep inequalities. Many Cubans particularly disliked Lage because he was the government official who proposed eliminating modest financial incentives and the bag of personal hygiene products that some state workers regularly received during the economic crisis known as the Special Period in the 1990s.
The photos Lage shared in the video show a man who had a privileged life while in power and apparently kept some benefits after his dismissal. His family looks well dressed, celebrating at hotels. Lage himself is seen diving, posing with a lobster and drinking whiskey with friends, all activities that regular Cubans cannot afford.
A Cuban social media influencer put in simple terms what many in the island felt after watching the video.
“This guy, Lage, says that profound changes are needed in Cuba. BUUUUT !!! he trusts the revolution and is still loyal to Fidel Castro,” wrote Norlis González on a Facebook group. “Dude: you are more of the same. How do you expect profound changes to happen if you keep the main problem alive?”
The moneyman
But while Lage’s comeback might be a smokescreen, a shadowy figure is seizing the opportunity to advance his game, sensing the current leader’s weakness.
In the past few years, Army Gen. Luis Alberto Rodríguez López-Calleja, at first largely unknown to most Cubans, has been expanding his control over Cuba’s economy. And slowly but steadily he has been moving towards the center of the political stage.
While Díaz-Canel is the public face of Cuba’s government as president and the Communist Party’s first secretary, Rodríguez López-Calleja, who was once married to one of Raúl Castro’s daughters, is the country’s moneyman.
He controls GAESA, the consortium that manages most of the island’s economic life: hotel chains and other tourism-related businesses, real estate development and construction companies, grocery stores, gasoline stations, warehouses, remittance services and many other profitable ventures, including the Special Developing Zone at Port Mariel near Havana.
Investigations by the Miami Herald, El Nuevo Herald and McClatchy have shown that his brother, Guillermo Faustino Rodríguez López-Calleja, runs a network of offshore companies that carry out Cuba’s global shipping operations. Guillermo owns Mid Atlantic, a company registered in Luxembourg with several subsidiaries connected to that network.
Gen. Rodríguez López-Calleja and GAESA are under U.S. sanctions, but that has not deterred him from consolidating his economic power and climbing the political ladder.
He has been a member of the Party Central Committee since 2011. Still, after Díaz-Canel succeeded Raúl Castro as head of state in 2018, the general’s face started to pop up on pictures published of official events and foreign trips, very close to the new leader. Unsure of what to say about him, state media did not mention his name in the photo captions.
Although Rodríguez López-Calleja was not named prime minister when a new constitution created the position in 2019, he was able to get a close ally appointed: Manuel Marrero, a colonel who headed Gaviota, a tourism subsidiary of GAESA. Marrero worked closely with Rodríguez López-Calleja as tourism minister for 15 years.
But with Raúl Castro turning 90 this year, there’s a sense of urgency in Rodríguez López-Calleja’s latest maneuvers. In April, the general got a seat on the Communist Party Politburo. In September he was identified as a “special adviser to the president” in state media images of a Díaz-Canel trip to Mexico. And without much explanation, he was made a member of the National Assembly in late October, representing Remedios, a town in the central province of Santa Clara.
The designation paves the way to a future bid for the prime minister position, which would secure his grip, and that of the military, on Cuba’s economy in the post-Castro era.
“He is in all the right places to become prime minister: in the party Politburo, in the military, he is the moneyman, and he is now a member of the National Assembly,” Morales said. “Under such conditions, he could take Marrero’s position and make him president, similar to what [Vladimir] Putin and [Dmitry] Medvedev have done in Russia.”
Rodríguez López-Calleja, 61, cannot become president under the current constitution that established a top age limit of 60, but that restriction could be changed in the future so he could alternate in the presidency with Marrero or some other handpicked official, Morales said.
The embattled incumbent
The timing of Lage’s video and the GAESA general’s entrance to the assembly could not be more telling. Just three years after Raúl Castro handed him the top government position, Díaz-Canel is facing his biggest challenge yet.
As Castro’s successor, he was left with unsavory tasks that had been delayed for many years, like monetary reform and currency unification.
But economists believe the timing his government picked at the beginning of this year for both policy changes was wrong because the island was facing widespread scarcity and entire industries were paralyzed because of the coronavirus pandemic. The government also did not have foreign currency to offset the spiraling exchange-rate speculation that ensued. The Díaz-Canel government’s decision to sell food and essential goods in dollars angered many Cubans who do not receive remittances nor salaries in foreign currency.
With little to show in terms of prosperity — and lacking a family connection to the ruling family and the credentials of those who fought together with the Castro brothers in the 1950s — Díaz-Canel has constantly invoked Fidel, “the Commander in Chief,” to legitimize his government and threaten his opponents.
But Díaz-Canel is no Castro. Even as he imposes the same repressive tactics, harassing and imprisoning hundreds of protesters, activists, dissidents and independent journalists, he does not inspire the same kind of blind adoration — or fear — the late Cuban leader did, nor has he been able to suppress criticism in social media, despite many recent government decrees to criminalize online dissent.
Cubans are becoming more daring, more frustrated and more willing to face the consequences of their opinions and actions in the political arena. On July 11, thousands took to the streets to insult Díaz-Canel and call for the “end of the dictatorship” islandwide.
That day, Díaz-Canel went on live television to order supporters to confront the protesters, a decision that stirred condemnation worldwide. Even if he was following orders, which many Cuba observers believe he was, it cost him significant domestic support, as many artists and intellectuals who had not been active politically or were known as government supporters went public to criticize the violence.
More recently, young artists and activists of the civic group Archipiélago called for a peaceful march on Nov. 15 to demonstrate against state violence and advocate for the release of the more than 500 people still detained since the July protests. The initiative pushed Díaz-Canel’s government to make such an extreme show of force to prevent people from taking to the streets that activists said the initiative was a victory, and it would not be the last one.
The crackdown has not muzzled Cuba’s youth, and Díaz-Canel’s popularity has tanked even more.
He tweeted a photo of his latest visit to Castro’s grave in Santiago de Cuba, his hand solemnly touching the kernel-shaped stone tomb. The symbolic gesture, aimed at reminding the island’s citizens he embodies the continuation of Castro’s ideas, got a very different response from younger Cubans in social media.
They created social media memes making fun of him.
Sensing the current perils, Raúl Castro attended a recent Communist Party session in late October, even though he is officially retired. Three years before, when he handed power to Díaz-Canel in 2018, he told the National Assembly that Díaz-Canel was the “only survivor” of a group of younger leaders, including Lage, groomed to succeed the two brothers.
“We made the mistake of accelerating the process,” he said of Lage and others who were discarded along the way, but added that with Díaz-Canel, “we nailed it.”
But the atmosphere in the recent Party meeting was anything but cheerful. A defensive Díaz-Canel blamed the U.S., the embargo and the pandemic for the country’s problems and tried to assure Party members his government was still in control, capable of suppressing the increasingly vocal opposition.
In a sign he’s under pressure within the Party ranks too, Díaz-Canel also acknowledged that “many are asking where we are going.”
His answer laid bare why many young Cubans advocating change do not feel represented by his government. “There’s nothing new to say; we simply go towards what our [Party] programmatic documents state.”
While each of these political figures — Díaz-Canel, Lage and Rodríguez López-Calleja — could represent a different political future for the country, none is a viable option for those who want Cuba to transition to democracy, activists say.
The yearning for more freedoms among the Cuban youth was best captured by the protest song “Patria y Vida” — Homeland and Life — which won the song of the year award in the Latin Grammys last week. One of its authors, rapper Maykel “Osorbo” Castillo, could not attend because he is in a Cuban jail for criticizing the government.
The song’s simple twist of the revolutionary slogan Patria o Muerte — Homeland or Death — coined by Fidel Castro, became the cry of protesters in July and a powerful sign that many Cubans now openly reject his ideas.
“Everything has changed; nothing is the same. Between you and me, there is an abyss,” the song says. “No more lies! My people demand freedom! No more doctrines! No longer shall we cry, “Homeland or death,” but “Homeland and life!
“And we have no fear; the charade has ended. It’s all over!”
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