While power remains in the hands of those who designed and sustain the disaster, the Island will continue on its path to extinction
14ymedio, Madrid, Yunior García Aguilera, December 21, 2025 — At the end of every year, Miguel Díaz-Canel repeats the same slogan: “next year will be better.” It doesn’t matter how grave the closing balance has been, nor how deep the accumulated wounds. Official optimism appeals each New Year’s Eve to rhetorical morphine for the grieving and to keeping the Revolution’s corpse in chloroform. Reality, however, behaves like an implacable forensic report. And the diagnosis leaves us with a country in a prolonged process of decomposition whose reversal is unviable while the same authors of the disaster remain in power.
The year 2025 was a clear confirmation of that trajectory with no light at the end of the tunnel. The price hike [‘tarifazo‘] from Etecsa, the national telecommunications monopoly, applied in a country where average salaries barely allow survival, provoked a university protest that was quelled with threats and pressure on the main leaders of the rebellion. Blackouts increased until they became the daily norm. Hurricane Melissa worsened structural damage and added to the list of victims with unresolved problems. The scandal of Alejandro Gil’s conviction once again exposed that the power’s method is punishment without transparency. The country faces a health crisis marked by outbreaks of chikungunya, dengue and other diseases, with dozens of deaths, medicine shortages, hospitals operating at capacity and collapsed cemeteries.
Closing the year, Parliament experienced a series of unusual resignations, including that of the Secretary of the Council of State, Homero Acosta, seen by some as part of the reformist bloc. His replacement by José Luis Toledo Santander—a staunch conservative—is an unequivocal signal that immobilism has won the internal fight and is calling the shots. Toledo Santander became sadly famous for his phrase that “the Communist Party is above the Constitution.”
The demographic dimension converts that sum of crises and bad omens into an even more serious problem. Cuba lost the balance between births and deaths long ago. In the last five years, the country registered—according to official data—a negative external migratory balance exceeding one million people. This is a systematic bleeding of population of working and reproductive age. And the result is a society that ages without accumulated wealth, without sufficient productive force and without generational replacement. In historical terms, Cuba has entered a phase never seen in the region for a country that is not at war.
Cuba offers blackouts, human decapitalization, chronic corruption, inflation and massive emigration
Comparison with other countries in the Caribbean environment is necessary to understand that the problem is not the geographical zone nor post-pandemic effects. The Dominican Republic, with a similar population, maintains sustained demographic growth: many more Dominicans are born than die. Additionally, it attracts investment, expands its tourism sector and sustains an imperfect but functional energy system. Cuba, in contrast, sees tourism income fall to levels so low they don’t even cover the most basic imports.
Energy explains much of that divergence. The Dominican Republic consumes and serves more than 22,000 GWh annually, with installed capacity exceeding 7,200 megawatts (MW), which allows it to sustain industry, services and urban life. Cuba, with similar capacity, though 50% inoperative, and with much lower consumption, cannot cover even half of daily demand. Blackouts are the logical result of decades without real investment, dependence on imported fuels and mismanagement. Without stable energy there is no productivity, and without productivity there is no possible improvement.
In this context, the insistence of some on applying the Chinese or Vietnamese models is unsustainable and absurd. China and Vietnam bet on deep reforms, large-scale opening, insertion into global value chains and a relatively stable framework of rules for capital. Cuba has done the opposite, with partial reforms, state control over strategic sectors, criminalization of private accumulation and an unpredictable regulatory climate. The Asian model requires abundant energy, sustained investment, fiscal discipline and an expanding workforce. Cuba offers blackouts, human decapitalization, chronic corruption, inflation and massive emigration. Asian culture, in contrast, is based on effort, competitiveness and ambition to grow. Cuban culture settles for “resolving” and “surviving,” accumulating social weariness from the permanent demand for sacrifice without reward.
The Cuban crisis is not reversible in the current political framework
The Island doesn’t have many allies left capable of artificially sustaining the system. Venezuela faces its own crisis and has reduced fuel shipments. Russia confronts a war economy with resources concentrated on another front. Mexico cooperates in limited fashion, while dealing with internal tensions and an increasingly critical young generation. At the same time, the regional political map has changed. Governments that for years offered ideological support have lost elections or face internal weaknesses. For the international left, Cuba has ceased to be an exportable symbol. It is, rather, an uncomfortable problem that cannot be mentioned without having an excuse manual nearby.
The health and education crisis completes the crime scene. The health system, for decades presented as a showcase, now functions with chronic shortages, professional exodus and rising negative indicators. Education also suffers abandonment, quality loss and teacher desertion. Human capital, the country’s main historical asset, deteriorates or emigrates, and is no longer capable of maintaining high standards in a world that prioritizes technology and the handling of new tools. The regime has repeated several times that it has Artificial Intelligence development on its agenda: how the hell is that achieved in a country without energy, aged, poorly connected and bankrupt?
Everything leads to an objective conclusion: the Cuban crisis is not reversible in the current political framework. Not because natural resources, talent or geographical possibilities are lacking, but because the system governing the Island is incompatible with recovery. Each passing year, the demographic base shrinks, infrastructure degrades, energy becomes scarcer and social trust erodes.
In official rhetoric, the entire disaster is justified with the expressions “intensified blockade” and “enemy campaigns.” The paradox is that, if the country’s clinical death has not yet been decreed, it is thanks to Miami and other capitals of exile. Without the oxygen of remittances and diaspora investment in the private sector, the Island would have long ago entered respiratory arrest.
Continuing to repeat that “next year will be better” is premeditated cruelty and a slap in the face of Cubans. The country needs a profound and urgent break with the model that brought it here. While power remains in the hands of those who designed and sustain the disaster, Cuba will continue on its path to extinction.
Translated by Regina Anavy
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