The fight for Cuba’s future

Fidel Castro’s aura has faded amid power struggles and growing opposition on the communist island. Nora Ga´ mez Torres reports.

Cuba’s elites are looking ahead to a post-Castro era when the government’s top positions might be up for grabs.

Five years after Fidel Castro’s death, a game of thrones is under way in Cuba. The former dictator’s legacy continues to shape much of the communist island’s political and economic system, and his thought is the prevailing doctrine of the ruling Communist Party. Yet the aura surrounding Castro has lost its appeal among younger generations concerned with the country’s present and future.

Instead, many Cubans have joined the opposition ranks, clashing directly with the government of current leader Miguel Dı´az-Canel in unprecedented protests.

Dı´az-Canel ascended to power after Castro’s brother, Rau´ l, 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 Dı´az-Canel is facing new threats to his rule as government and Communist Party leader.

While Dı´az-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 Cuba’s 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 pyjamas plan’’ – in a video leaked to social media, in which he presents himself as an alternative to Dı´az-Canel.

Powerful general Luis Alberto Rodrı´guez Lo´pez-Calleja, who controls the vast militaryeconomic 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.

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 favour when Rau´ l Castro took over for his sick brother and substituted ‘‘fidelistas’’ with his own

cadre of loyalist generals and oldguard figures.

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 October 15, Lage’s voice is heard narrating over photos of his life, many with leftist leaders like Fidel Castro, Venezuela’s Hugo Cha´vez and Bolivia’s Evo Morales. 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.’’

But to assure hardliners he is not campaigning as a Cuban version of Mikhail Gorbachev, whose leadership led to the fall of the Soviet Union, he states: ‘‘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 Rau´ l Castro. Though Dı´az-Canel is also not mentioned, Lage’s opening words in the video include a sarcastic remark about inflation, a veiled reference to the failure of currency unification and monetary reform under the new leader.

Lage’s video instantly generated debate and speculation about the true intentions of its release. But few Cubans believe that it was made without the tacit or explicit consent of state security or people in a position of power.

Activists and dissidents warned that the video was a move 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.

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.

The moneyman

In the past few years, General Luis Alberto Rodrı´guez Lo´pezCalleja, 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 centre of the political stage.

While Dı´az-Canel is the public face of Cuba’s government as president and the Communist Party’s first secretary, Rodrı´guez Lo´ pez-Calleja, who was once married to one of Rau´ l 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, petrol stations, warehouses, remittance services and many other profitable ventures. Investigations by the Miami Herald, El Nuevo Herald and McClatchy have shown that his brother, Guillermo Faustino Rodrı´guez Lo´pez-Calleja, runs a network of offshore companies that carry out Cuba’s global shipping operations.

After Dı´az-Canel succeeded Rau´ l 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.

Although Rodrı´guez Lo´pezCalleja 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 Rodrı´guez Lo´ pez-Calleja as tourism minister for 15 years.

But with Rau´ l Castro turning 90 this year, there’s a sense of urgency in Rodrı´guez Lo´pezCalleja’s latest manoeuvres.

In April, he 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 trip by Dı´az-Canel to Mexico. And without much explanation, he was made a member of the National Assembly in late October.

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.

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 Rau´ l Castro handed him the top government position, Dı´az-Canel is facing his biggest challenge yet.

As Castro’s successor, he was left with unsavoury tasks that had been delayed for many years, like monetary reform and currency unification.

With little to show in terms of prosperity – and lacking a family connection to the ruling family, and the credentials of those who fought with the Castro brothers in the 1950s – Dı´az-Canel has constantly invoked Fidel, ‘‘the Commander in Chief’’, to legitimise his government and threaten his opponents.

But Dı´az-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 criminalise 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 Dı´az-Canel and call for the ‘‘end of the dictatorship’’ islandwide.

Dı´az-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 criticise the violence.

While each of these political figures – Dı´az-Canel, Lage and Rodrı´guez Lo´ pez-Calleja – could represent a different political future for Cuba, none is a viable option for those who want the country 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 criticising 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 the protesters in July, and a powerful sign that many Cubans now openly reject his ideas.