The President of Cuba, Miguel Díaz-Canel, was reelected without surprises this April 19 for a second and last term of five years, with the vote of 97.66% of the Parliament deputies.
Without surprises, the Cuban National Assembly re-elected Miguel Díaz-Canel as president for a second and final term. He remains in office for five more years, a period of continuity and challenges, especially in the economic sphere, which he must overcome to stop the largest exodus in the country’s recent history.
Balance with contrasts
A 62-year-old electronic engineer, the Cuban president, who received 459 votes in favor of the 462 deputies present in the legislative session, will lead his second government in a context of economic crisis, shortages and popular discontent on the communist island, after leaving a balance with contrasts of his first term.
Florida International University political analyst Jorge Duany highlights his reforms: “Gave foot for that HE will perform the companies private, stuff that occurred later, with the little, medians and micro companies. AND lately, in he 2022, HE approved a new Code of the Family, that also opens the door for the legalization of the marriages between people of the same sex to weigh of a opposition quite remarkable of determined churches,” he estimates.
great challenges
The challenges are great. Cubans are still very aware of the repression of the protests of July 11, 2021 and also the economic crisis that is shaking the country. According to Jorge Duany, the problems are several: “The economic recession, the drop in the Gross Domestic Product in 2020 by 11%, the fact that there is still a great shortage of food, medicine, fuel, which overwhelms the population, the constant electricity blackouts, a migratory crisis that does not seem finish… Although the number of Cubans who have entered through the United States-Mexico border has decreased, last year the highest number in history was registered, more than 225,000 Cubans detained at the border,” he stresses.
“I want to say that this continuous economic, political, and demographic pressure is going to continue to overwhelm Cuban society, a society that is becoming one of the oldest in the world. That is definitely a problem, the inability of the social security and pension systems to be able to satisfy their basic needs”, emphasizes the analyst.
Future relations with the United States
For Duany, the question of future relations between Cuba and the United States “is a great question mark, because by a side depends in his elderly amount of the decisions that can take he Government Cuban, except that I was willing to do some series of reforms policies and economic that he Government of state Joined ha state claiming by a lot time. Specifically the release of the prisoners politicians, about all the that were imprisoned after of the eleven of july, the opening to a system of matches multiple, the elections free, that go to be very difficult of achieve. I seems that this No this in the diary of this new Government of Diaz Cinnamon”.
“AND by other part”, he continues, “also the decisions that can take the Administration Biden of pursue with a series of measures that could relax the sanctions that imposed the administration former of Trump. until the date No HE they have carried to cape, except measures that HE they have taken for favor the remittances of the Cuban Americans and the trips to the island. But apart of those, seems to have a moment of pause in the policy of state Joined toward Cuba, and is very difficult imagine that HE can advance in the standardization of the relations between the two countries in the next five years”.
On the other hand, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov arrived in Havana on Wednesday night, where he will hold talks with the president on the last stop of his tour of Latin America, the Foreign Ministry reported.
Miguel Díaz-Canel has governed Cuba since 2018 and is the first civilian to take the reins of the country after the mandates of the brothers Fidel and Raúl Castro, who held power since the triumph of the Revolution in 1959.
