14ymedio – Page 154 – Translating Cuba

Saramago’s Havana Book

“The house which I see in the photos is obviously not the house of a proletarian, but of an accomplished and wealthy novelist.” (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Xavier Carbonell, Salamanca, 4 December 2022 – A colleague of mine went to Lanzarote – the most eastern island of the Canaries archipelago – and on her return she sent me some photos of the house where José Saramago lived. I’ve always been an admirer of the Portuguese writer, famous for his large spectacles, his bitter, faithless prose, his reflective atheism and his fervour – scarred with age – for a communist utopia.

The house which I see in the photos is obviously not the house of a proletarian, but of an accomplished and wealthy novelist (he deserved it, without a doubt. He earned it – through his writing, not through government fawning and handouts). There’s a collection of beautiful inkpots on a shelf, pictures of some friends, the bed in which he died, a small green table where I’d like to sit and smoke, palm trees and cactuses on the patio, and, in the distance, a landscape which he described as “dark, and covered in bits of crushed lava”.

And books. Many books. Legions of heavy tomes which now rest on top of armchairs and bookshelves. Titles in various languages and from many cultures. Volumes, owned by a writer who travelled, dreamt and invented with intensity – though not about the other way in which we should live, dream or invent.

Not very much more than a few days ago – on 16 November – Saramago would have been 100. Few people remembered him in Cuba – a rough and volcanic island, much like Lanzarote – where the novelist was welcome, until he made a famous pronouncement which mortified Castro: “I’ve come this far” [“…and if Cuba is to continue their journey I’m staying behind”]. continue reading

I believe [when he died, in 2010] the National Library hung up a few posters and the usual crew got together to formalise his burial. Saramago donated the rights to his works to an island that ended up executing, much to his horror, the three Cubans who attempted to abandon our oppressive stone raft in 2003.

“The worst thing about Islands”, the lucid Portuguese novelist had written a couple of years earlier, “is when they start to imitate the sea that surrounds them. Under siege [from the sea], they [put their people under] siege”

Amongst the photos is one of Saramago’s bedside table. Underneath his spectacles, which now lie closed for ever, is one of his Lanzarote Notebooks: his diaries 1993-1997, which, either through boredom or excess of work, he abandoned. The following year, and after a long wait, the Swedes awarded him the Nobel Prize for Literature.

It’s a frenetic decade: the end of the century. In publisher Alfaguara’s classic edition of the Notebooks that I have in my hands, he reflects upon the hypocrisy of Diana Princess of Wales and Mother Teresa, the embarrassment of Gorbachev appearing in a pizza comercial and the failure of the communist project; there are transcriptions of letters from Christian believers, infuriated by The Gospel According to Jesus Christ and there’s an account of how An Essay on Blindness was written; in these, Saramago is intimate, courteous, ironic and endearing, as if he’s conversing at the little green table on his Lanzarote patio.

And of course there’s an abundance of references to Cuba, to Roberto Fernández Retamar – the grey prominent figure at the Casa de las Américas – to Cuban writer Cabrera Infante, to the Castro-Guevara duo, and to the local version of socialism during the ‘Special Period‘.

In May 1993, the young poet Almelio Calderón – in exile today – sent him a letter written in pencil. “Our editorial policy is very slow. At the moment there is a huge paper crisis”, he told him before admitting nervously: “There isn’t any”. Fueled by a hope for change that didn’t happen, the young man with no pen concluded by saying: “Here we are living through historical moments, very unique, very important, very intense, and I hope that history will know how to record them in its pages”.

I continue turning the pages. On 5 January 1994 a planned journey to the Island falls through, a journey which he interpretes as “the last opportunity to return to the socialist Cuba that I admire”. At the end of that year he even pledged to stand up for Castro with Clinton.

The most intense link with Cuba in the Notebooks was the obsession which took over him after reading the beautiful Muestrario del mundo (The World’s Sampler) by Eliseo Diego. In 1993, Eliseo -“one of the greatest poets of this century, and I’ve said this both inside and beyond Cuba”, Saramago noted, – had just won the Juan Rulfo Prize. Shortly after, death came knocking at his “modest door”.

Heartbroken by the friendship that was not to be, the novelist retired to his library to read all of Eliseo’s poetry works. And it’s here he makes a discovery: “Matías Pérez” – proclaims a known passage by the Cuban, and which sounds to him [Saramago] like an incantation – “toldero [a seller of canopies] by profession, what was there in your huge pretensions that took you away with such elegance and haste”.

He feels the possibility of a new novel like it were a command from the dead. “Matías Pérez, who are you?” he notes down various times – in Lanzarote, in Lisbon, in Madrid or in Río de Janeiro. He dreams about the hot air balloon and starts to investigate – “I wanted to know the how and the when of such an appealing story” – and he writes to Retamar asking him for a clue, a lead, a ’silhouette’ of this Portuguese guy who disappeared forever over the rooftops of Havana. “Who knows, maybe I’ll go to Cuba to uncover the mystery of Matías Pérez. If not, I’ll just have to invent him, from head to toe”, he notes, and throws in the towel.

The end of the story is, I’m afraid, not very romantic. The sinister Retamar replies years later with a letter. Inside the envelope, carefully folded, there is a newspaper cutting about Matías Pérez, written in almost forensic tones, ending with: “The military authorities of the day carried out a thorough investigation. There was no trace. But months later, the remains of a hot-air balloon were found, in the coastal keys close to the Pinos Islands”.

Saramago must have destroyed the actual article – who knows whether or not he was instructed to by ‘inspector’/ curator Retamar, in order to deter him from writing the story – the ‘Havana novel’ that José Saramago might have written. Retamar, like Mephistopheles, later came to demand a favour: in exchange for that newspaper cutting he wanted a “brief portrait” of Guevara for his magazine.

On 2 July 1996, in his Lanzarote library, Saramago mentioned Matías Pérez for the last time: “If I get the time and I keep my determination up, perhaps one day I’ll get out and look for him”.

Translated by Ricardo Recluso

*Translator’s note: Matías Pérez was a nineteenth century Portuguese-born Cuban, who was a canopy tradesman and an amateur balloonist, who disappeared mysteriously during one of his balloon flights from Havana.

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Largest Group of Cubans to Date, More then 500, Cross the US Border

This Friday, 1,000 migrants turned themselves in to the Border Patrol in Eagle Pass (Texas). (@BillFOXLA)

14ymedio, Havana | 9 December 2022 — No fewer than 535 Cubans crossed the Rio Grande at the same time this Thursday through the state of Piedras Negras, before turning themselves in to the Border Patrol in Eagle Pass, Texas. The natives of the Island were gathered in an area near the Lehmann ranch together with 74 other migrants from Nicaragua, 49 from Colombia, three from Ecuador, three from Mexico and 12 unaccompanied children.

While their data was being taken from the undocumented, Fox News journalist Bill Melugin reported on his social media that the group was made up of almost 700 migrants. “Border Patrol had taken several full buses by the time our team arrived on the scene,” he said.

This is the largest group that has been documented to arrive at Eagle Pass to date. The Maverick County sheriff, Tom Schmerber, acknowledged in an interview with the local outlet Zócalo, the migratory crisis the region is experiencing, and warned of the arrival of more migrants, who have been located on the Piedras Negras side waiting to cross the Rio Grande until night falls.

NEW: An enormous single group of nearly 700 migrants crossed illegally into Eagle Pass, TX during the pre dawn hours this morning, almost all of them single adults. Several busloads of migrants had been transported away by Border Patrol by the time our team got on scene. @FoxNews pic.twitter.com/clt1WQ52jl

— Bill Melugin (@BillFOXLA) December 8, 2022

Hours later, the communicator reported two other groups that were being registered by the Border Patrol for processing. “Approximately 1,000 migrants have just crossed into the Eagle Pass area illegally,” he posted on his Twitter account. continue reading

The US official attributed the migratory avalanche to the coyote networks that operate in total “impunity” on the Mexican side of Piedras Negras and Acuña. “There are more than 100 smugglers who traffic and have protection from the police,” denounced Schmerber. When it is not possible to cross by the river, the human smugglers “hide the people in vans” and after crossing the border strip they leave the migrants to turn themselves in and continue their process. “If they get deported or detained, that’s not the smugglers’ problem anymore.”

Among the Border Patrol targets, the sheriff identified people from Michoacán and Zacatecas, whom he named by their aliases El Samurai, El Gallo, El Padre and El Cónsul, who have ranches and mansions in Piedras Negras. Migrants are taken to these sites and remain there until they cross over the Rio Grande.

José Quintana arrived in Acuña along with his sister Marisleydis on Sunday. These Cubans were detained on November 14 at a hotel in Mexico City and, despite having an amparo [a writ guaranteeing constitutional protection of rights], they were detained at the Las Agujas immigration station. After five days they were released. “We have family in Texas and they are looking at how to pass us over. I think it will be through the river, but people say it is dangerous,” Quintana told 14ymedio.

This native of Havana mentioned that the hotels are in collusion with coyotes and police. “If you don’t pay to go through, they will hand you over and threaten you with repatriation.” For this reason, some acquaintances recommended people who charge the migrants to stay in their homes until they manage to cross into the United States.

Not all migrants who manage to cross the border turn themselves in. The communicator Bill Melugin reported that 130,000 people escaped from the Border Patrol in the first 10 months of the year. In November there were “at least 73,000 people who evaded the control of the officers, which represents a daily average of at least 2,400 illegal immigrants.”

The exodus of Cubans to the US continues to show record numbers, with a record of 29,872 who entered illegally in October, a number that exceeds the 26,730 who entered in September, according to data from the US Customs and Border Protection Office. (CBP).

According to data from the US Department of Customs and Border Protection, 224,000 Cuban migrants have arrived in the last year.

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Cuba is the Country Most Dependent on Imported Food, After Panama

Between 2018 and 2020, Cuba suffered a deficit in imports of agricultural products that amounted to 1.632 billion dollars. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Havana | 9 December 2022 — A report published this Tuesday by three United Nations agencies concludes that Cuba is the second country in Latin America and the Caribbean with the highest deficit and per capita dependence on imports of agricultural products, only surpassed by Panama.

The report, prepared by the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (Cepal) together with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the World Food Program (WFP), explores how the Russian invasion of Ukraine compromises the daily livelihood of millions of Latin American families, including Cuban ones, who are also suffering from the island’s deep economic crisis.

It is no secret to anyone that the country presents notable deficiencies in its agricultural and food production, exacerbated by the scarcity of fuels and key inputs. The low availability of food and basic necessities are part of the causes that drive Cubans to emigrate, and have also led to an increase in the rates of violence on the island.

Between 2018 and 2020, Cuba suffered a deficit in imports of agricultural products that amounted to 1.632 billion dollars, buying more than it exported. The greatest imbalance is observed in food — with the exception of fish — with a negative balance of 1.635 billion dollars. continue reading

The cereal deficit was 668 million dollars, while in corn and wheat it was 181 million. The little that goes into fruits and vegetables also marks a negative balance of 109 million dollars in imports and another 104 million in vegetable oils. In dairy, the imbalance was 204 million, while the figure for meat is 446 million.

Venezuela, which is also experiencing a deep economic and migration crisis, had a deficit in imports of agricultural products of 3.359 billion dollars. Panama, which claims to be the largest economy in Central America, also had a deficit of 1.988 billion dollars.

Although the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean do not depend directly on imports of cereals, corn and vegetable oils from Russia and Ukraine, the report notes, food prices are affected by world trade restrictions. The conflict directly impacts the value of fertilizers, since in 2021 the Russian Federation was the world’s largest exporter of nitrogens, the second of potassium and the third of phosphate.

The UN agencies point out that the world economy has not had a truce in the last 15 years with successive crises, among which the financial crisis of 2008, the trade tensions between China and the United States exacerbated in 2019 and the covid-19 pandemic in 2020 stand out, followed by the breakdown of logistics chains, inflation and the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

As a consequence, ECLAC forecasts that the economy of Latin America and the Caribbean will slow down to 1.4% in 2023 after experiencing 3.2% this year. In its latest update of the outlook, published last October, the agency reduced its projection for Cuba from the 3% it had forecast in August to 2% for 2022. The scenario is much less optimistic for 2023, with just 1.8%.

At the moment, the FAO says in the report, the biggest concern is that inflation puts at risk access to a healthy diet for households with lower incomes, in a context in which hunger increased by 30% between 2019 and 2021 as consequence of the pandemic. The World Food Program complements this data with an analysis, carried out in June 2022, which reveals that food insecurity is among the main causes for leaving one’s country of birth.

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Three Turkish Floating Power Plants Scramble to End the Blackouts in Cuba

The Turkish floating plants next to the Tallapiedra plant, in Havana, this Friday. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Juan Diego Rodríguez, Havana | 9 December 2022 — Three floating plants of the Turkish company Karpowership can be seen these days in the vicinity of the Otto Parellada power plant, known as Tallapiedra, in Havana. Of them, only two, the one that arrived on November 15 and one more, seem to be working, connected to the thermoelectric plant through which the ship transports the electricity they produce (110 megawatts each).

The other, a short distance from these, and smaller (with a generation capacity of 15 MW), has stopped working this Friday.

Belonging to Karadeniz Holding, the power stations of this type, of which there are seven in Cuba, according to the official press, distributed between the port of Mariel and Havana – are, the authorities pointed out, “part of the strategy to gradually increase generation and move the country away from the effects of energy deficits.”

Once all of them are synchronized with the National Electric System (SEN), they will only contribute a little more than 400 MW, a figure that is, in principle, insufficient to alleviate the energy deficit on the Island. However, one thing is certain: since the beginning of December, and according to the daily reports of the Cuban Electric Union (UNE), the “affects” on the service have been decreasing. continue reading

From the figures of December 1, when the UNE forecast a deficit of 1,054 MW and an affectation of 1,124 MW in peak hours, it has gone on to have no deficit this Friday.

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‘There is Only One Person Responsible: Fidel Castro,’ Reinaldo Arenas Wrote on December 7

Reinaldo Arenas was born in 1943 in Holguín, a telluric and difficult region, from which Guillermo Cabrera Infante, Fulgencio Batista and Castro himself also emerged. (Reinaldo Arenas Archive)

14ymedio, Xavier Carbonell, Salamanca, 7 December 2022 — On 7 December 1990, 32 years ago, Reinaldo Arenas committed suicide “without first having to go through the insult of old age.” He himself recounts that, when they told him that he would soon die of AIDS, he went to his apartment and made a wish, half a prayer and half an insult, in front of the portrait of Virgilio Piñera.

“Listen to what I am going to tell you,” he snapped at the deceased, “I need three more years of life to finish my work, which is my revenge against almost the entire human race.” With unfortunate punctuality, three years after that sentence, and maintaining “equanimity until the last moment,” he killed himself in New York.

Of all Arenas’s texts, the most brutal and serene was his brief farewell letter, written to be published. “There is only one person responsible: Fidel Castro.” The phrase falls back on the Cuban reader, lapidary and current. “The sufferings of exile, the pains of exile, the loneliness and the illnesses that I may have contracted in exile, surely I would not have suffered if I had lived free in my country.”

Arenas was born in 1943 in Holguín, a telluric and difficult region, from which Guillermo Cabrera Infante, Fulgencio Batista and Castro himself also emerged. Of Guajira origin, he always kept the rusticity and innocence of a boy from the provinces. Ruffled with hair and imagination, with a deep and seductive speech, the young man soon made his way in Havana and maintained a long friendship with José Lezama Lima and Virgilio Piñera. continue reading

His best-known book, Antes que anochezca [Before Night Falls*], attests to the surveillance, persecution, and imprisonment to which he was subjected by Castro’s political police. The cruelty of the State against the writer, the cornering of him in the most unusual settings – from Lenin Park to a precarious boat heading to the US – could only engender in Arenas a lucid, spiteful memory that was true to itself.

His novels – which he had to secretly send abroad – had already made him famous. But when a journalist traveled to Havana to interview him, he had to solve a labyrinth of clues and tricks, audacity and passwords, to find Arenas in the end, like a happy minotaur, in some dilapidated lot.

The succession of photographs that accompany Before Night Falls allow us to see how his face, mischievous in childhood, flirtatious in youth, and sad and sentimental about to board the boat in Mariel, becomes spectral and serene in 1990.

More than three decades after his death, the work of Reinaldo Arenas continues to be terra incognita for the majority of Cuban readers and almost none of his books are published in his country, thanks to the censorship of the same government that exiled him.

Reading El Mundo Alucinante [Hallucinations*] or Celestino Antes del Alba [Celestino Before Dawn*] clandestinely, enjoying the pages of La loma del ángel [Graveyard of the Angels*] or savoring his poems by the sea, continues to be the most endearing way to remember Arenas on the anniversary of his death.

*Translator’s note: The translated titles are not necessarily direct translations but rather those used in the English editions

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Trunks and Branches Felled by Hurricane Ian Remain on the Streets of Havana

Corner of 17 and K in El Vedado, Havana. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Juan Diego Rodríguez, Havana, 8 December 2022 — The trees felled by Hurricane Ian in Havana, more than two months ago, seem to be nobody’s problem. The roots of a formidable specimen of Indian laurel, which stand out among the rubble and garbage at the corner of 17th and F, in El Vedado, Havana, attest to this.

Due to the impact of the winds in September, the laurel tore apart the gate of a state office linked to tourism and its trunk remained there until the return of the workers, after the cyclone. Then, workers from the Electric Company cut down the fallen trunk and several branches of the neighboring laurels.

According to an office worker speaking to 14ymedio, all the trees were planted together and belong to the same variety. “A few days after the cyclone, the people from the office tried to clear the place with machetes and left the garbage on the corner,” he reported. “After many days, a truck passed and took what it could.”

The current appearance of the corner of 17 and F, however, leaves much to be desired. Separating the trunk from the roots, they threw the latter into the same flowerbed where the tree was planted. Dirt has been accumulating around the pavement, also broken by the tearing up of the laurel, and even the neighbors have already transformed the place into a small dump. continue reading

Nor has the gate been repaired, its bars having been bent by the blow from the trunk, and there do not seem to be any plans to restore the concrete column that immobilized the gate, and also destroyed by the laurel.

The neglect of Community Services and the careless passage of passers-by does not augur any change in the terrible hygiene of the street. The tree, the trash, and even a rusty aluminum tank that keeps them company have fallen into no man’s land.

For greater irony, the entrance to the building proudly displays the plaque that distinguishes its occupants as a Collective of Heroic Tradition.

It is not the first time that 14ymedio has verified the lack of cleanliness in the streets of Havana, on which Hurricane Ian has left traces that remain more than two months later. “Since the sidewalk is the responsibility of the authorities, no one, neither the company nor the neighbors, will do anything more,” says the worker.

The trees uprooted by the hurricane, the leaves and roots that no one will clean up, and the garbage that people leave are now a common sight in the capital’s neighborhoods. This newspaper denounced how the residents of Parque Trillo, in Centro Habana, must skirt the fallen branches and avoid the poorly paved walkway.

Added to the chaos in public areas is damage to monuments, broken benches and poor quality pavement. None of these realities is discussed in the official press and, of course, local leaders and the Government of the Island don’t lose any sleep over it.
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Cuba: Havanageddon, Apocalypse of a Dictatorship

Younger organizations avoid caudillismo, they learn to work in a coordinated manner alongside others, they establish linkages with the generations with more accumulated experience. (Photograph from “Juan de los Muertos”, a movie directed by Alejandro Brugués, 2011)

14ymedio, Yunior García Aguilera, Madrid, 7 December 2022 — The regime in Havana is aware that its end is near. In the last three years the system’s undeniable collapse has become evident. The “circumstancial” crisis announced by Díaz-Canel in 2019 has been growing and worsening irreversibly. Applying the ’Ordering Task’* amid the pandemic turned out to be a foolish and suicidal act, which increased inflation, stockouts, and popular discontent.

The Cuban economy is like a Carilda Oliver Labra verse: “I am getting messy, love, I am getting messy.” Not only is it more chaotic than ever, but it is underwater in a sea of debt and unproductiveness. As if that were not enough, the leadership today is experiencing its greatest leadership crisis, with cadres that lack charisma, are politically mediocre and incapable of inspiring respect or making effective decisions.

The official discourse can’t manage to generate a single new idea and is limited to recycling old babble. But now the ones who believe the story of the blockade [i.e. the American embargo] as a perennial excuse are ever fewer, very few have faith that the system will turn out to be prosperous and sustainable and no one believes the threat of a foreign invasion anymore. The reality is that Cuba is not a priority for the Government of the United States. “David” has lost his slingshot and desperately seeks to do business with “Goliath.” The ripe fruit is about to fall to the ground and no one seems interested in taking it. continue reading

To stretch out the agony, the continent’s oldest dictatorship manages to strengthen its international alliances. However, its displays of submissiveness to Putin are like a fatal boomerang. Russia is not in a position to help anyone. And any rapprochement with the Kremlin, at this time, is like marking one’s forehead with the number of the beast.

On the other hand, the citizenry has lost its fear at a rapid pace. Never before had the regime had to confront so many protests, in all corners of the country. Social media is a battlefield where the government has lost by a landslide, despite the internet cuts, the creation of an army of anonymous accounts and the millions invested to attempt to control cyberspace. Even at the polls, their false democracy show has lost its audience. If before they used to brag about a participation rate above 95% of the electorate, the latest electoral skirmishes have broken all records of abstentions and no votes.

The brutal repression against everyone who dissents has not managed to suffocate the flames of protest. State Security has fragmented potential threats into three blocks. They take some directly to jail, issuing long sentences while they try to demoralize them, accusing them of being common, violent or marginalized criminals. They force others into exile, pushing them to abandon the country permanently. And for the rest, they simply use their techniques to reduce them to “non-persons,” they fire them or expel them from the university, surround their homes, cutoff their telephones, and submit them to continuous stress with threats, surveillance, and acts of repudiation.

State Security’s greatest achievement has been, perhaps, keeping the opposition fractured. In this way, they prevent opponents from forming a solid block capable of coordinating effective actions and obtaining legitimacy and recognition by international organizations.

To divide us, they exploit distrust among one another, maximizing ego struggles and diverting discussions toward unfruitful and innocuous areas. On social media, the regime counts on hundreds of anticommunist accounts whose only objective is to attack and discredit all leadership or any attempt at unification. And these anonymous accounts, supposedly radical, manage to do more damage than the typical ciberclarias.**

However, beyond their success, it is also palpable that many opponents are reaching a level of political maturity that allows them to put differences aside and focus on common strategies. Younger organizations avoid caudillismo, learn to work in a coordinated manner alongside others, they establish linkages with the generations with more accumulated experience and they create strong connections with opponents of other dictatorships, like those of Venezuela and Nicaragua.

Cuban civil society is becoming aware of its potential. Little by little they claim spaces that the regime doesn’t know and cannot reconquer. Each chunk of power taken from them is ground gained for democracy which we must all build together.

The dictatorship knows its end is near.

Translated by: Silvia Suárez

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Translator’s notes:

*The ‘Ordering Task’ [tarea ordenamiento] is a collection of measures that include eliminating the Cuban Convertible Peso (CUC), leaving the Cuban peso (CUP) as the only national currency, raising prices, raising salaries (but not as much as prices), opening stores that take payment only in hard currency, which must be in the form of specially issued pre-paid debit cards, and a broad range of other measures targeted to different elements of the Cuban economy.

**’Ciberclarias’ refers to internet trolls at the service of the government.

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Cubans Are Paying Almost 63 Percent More for Food Than a Year Ago

Food prices in Cuban markets and establishments have only risen in the last two years. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Madrid, 7 December 2022 — The consumer price index (CPI) had its highest growth of the year this October in Cuba, with 4.21%, according to data published this Monday by the National Office of Statistics and Information (Onei). At the end of October, Cubans paid 39.73% more than a year earlier for the goods and products they consume. Monthly inflation in October exceeded the two previous records, May (3.55%) and April (3.54%). Since January this year, prices have risen 28.76%.

If the data is broken down, it becomes clear what citizens already know: the increase in food prices is growing without measure, 62.73% in one year. The section on food and non-alcoholic beverages represents 78.88% of total year-on-year inflation. Regarding the accumulated so far this year, the data is 45.16%.

They are followed by restaurants and hotels, with 11.33%, and goods and services, with 2.93%. The rest barely contribute to raising the overall CPI. “Cuba registered in October 2022 the largest increase in food prices in the last 15 months. Food prices grew by 7% and ’explain’ almost 80% of the general increase in prices for the month, confirming that the country is mainly going through food inflation,” said Cuban economist Pedro Monreal, who regularly analyzes the data on Twitter. continue reading

The specialist said that, although the official data for inflation are not as high as the previous year, general year-over-year inflation in food alone is 62.73%. For all inflation for the year the total number of 45.16%.

The Onei data breaks down the section by product and pork is once again the greatest contribution to the rise in prices in its division. It rose 4.17% in the last month, but its contribution to the monthly CPI exceeds 25%. Rice rose 4.18% in October and its effect is 7%, while ham, with 5.2%, influences 2.5%. The section closes with eggs (2.4%) and garlic (3.2%), whose shares are 2% and 1.6% respectively.

The document also highlights the foods that increased the most this month — black beans, a staple in the Cuban diet, showed the greatest increase with 14%. Pork, poultry, ham and mutton are next, confirming the enormous problems Cubans have in buying protein of animal origin.

Regarding the other areas that most influence the monthly variation effect, restaurants and hotels grew above all in snacks (7% and an effect of more than 9%), lunch and dinner (6.2% and 8 .1%) or prepared food to take away (6.7%, although with an effect of only 0.7%). Soft drinks (4.6%) and breakfasts (4.3%) also rose considerably, although their influence on the increase in this group linked to food is less than 1%.

The rest is goods and services, where toilet paper stands out with a variation this November of 9.5%. The same occurs with hair dyes (4.7%), deodorant (2.26%), manicures (4.7%) and haircuts for men (4.21%). The weight of none of them, however, is substantial for the effect of the CPI variation, all remaining below 1% also although the total contribution of this section is close to 3%.

Regarding other areas, the monthly increase in Education prices is noted, 3.15%, while the number is 1.75% for alcohol and tobacco.

But the year-over-year increases from October 2021 to October 2022 are the ones that best reflect the deterioration in the life of the population in the last year. Although prices for recreation and culture have increased by more than 5% so far in 2022, and when compared to October 2021 the rise is dizzying, with 67%, the highest, even on food.

The year-over-year variation is very high in almost all the areas, so that only clothing and footwear, health and communications remain below 5% and all the rest rise by 10%, highlighting transportation, which is 17% more expensive than a year ago, an impact that hurts the family economy, although the data seems scarce when compared to that 63% of food.

In recent months, the official Cuban press has insistently and prominently published the high inflation in the Eurozone, which has been much higher than usual – especially since the start of the invasion of Ukraine and the rise in prices of energy – although it barely reached 10.6% year-on-year in October, its highest in more than two decades.

This November 30, the most recent data was released, which for the first time in a year and a half gave a breather, falling to 10% year-on-year. Energy (35% year-on-year increase) continues to determine the worst indices, which come from the Baltic countries, which are more dependent on Russia (Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania exceed 21%), and the best, with France (7.1%) and Spain (6.6%) closing the table. European consumers have the perception that food has become much more expensive and this is the case despite the fact that it rose 13%, 50 points below that in Cuba. Cubadebate has not published these figures.

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20 Cubans Arrive in Florida on a Raft with a Russian Kamaz Truck Engine

A group of rafters from Matanzas recorded their journey to Florida. (Collage)

14ymedio, Havana, 6 December 2022 — The Cuban Leitian Cedré shared on Facebook last Saturday two videos of the journey of at least 20 rafters who managed to disembark in the Florida Straits after 19 hours on the water. “I know that the brothers who could not come in this round will make it and they will be able to get out of suffering at any moment,” he confided.

The rafters, originally from the province of Matanzas, set sail in “one of the best rustics that has come out of Cárdenas,” Cedré proclaimed. A diesel engine from a Russian Kamaz V8 type truck was adapted to the raft. This type of vehicle is used on the island to transport sugarcane or merchandise.

Cedré recommended to those who are about to leave Cuba, to put “the spirit and fight into it a little more so that they see that everything is achieved.” No further details were provided about the rest of the group, while the rafter shared a second video in which they are fueling a boat, in which, he said, they will go fishing.

This Tuesday, the US Border Patrol took into custody 33 Cubans, seven women and 26 men, who managed to make landfall in the Florida Keys. The chief officer of the Miami sector, Walter Slosar, shared the images of two rafts in which the migrants arrived.

Slosar has documented in his networks the arrival of 88 Cubans so far in the last month of the year. Last Monday he reported two rustic boats in which 30 compatriots left the island. On Thursday, he commented on a raft with 25 people, including a child, from Matanzas who disembarked in Marathon. continue reading

As usual in these cases, the rafters have the option of requesting asylum, which implies demonstrating before an official or judge that their fear of returning to their country is justified. If the Cubans convince the relevant authorities, they are given a bond and can request asylum.

The US Coast Guard has thwarted the arrival of several groups of rafters in Florida. (@USCGSoutheast)

Several attempts to achieve the American dream have been thwarted by the United States Coast Guard. This Monday, 126 Cubans were repatriated aboard the ship Pablo Valent. Lieutenant Paul Puddington warned of the patrols being carried out in the Florida Straits, the Windward Passage and the Mona Channel “to prevent the tragic loss of life from these dangerous and illegal sea voyages.”

According to official figures, maritime surveillance has made it possible to thwart the arrival of 2,755 Cubans in Florida in the last three months. The US agency detailed that last year 6,182 rafters were detained.

The intercepted Cubans are returned to Cuba as part of a migration agreement between Washington and Havana, although on some occasions this does not happen, due to situations of credible fear of returning to the Island for repressive reasons. This is the case of 22 people, among whom is the activist Yeilis Torres Cruz, who are at the Guantanamo Base waiting for refuge in a third country.

The migratory crisis that the Island is experiencing is taking place above all by land. According to data from the US Department of Customs and Border Protection, 224,000 Cuban migrants arrived in the last year.

The crossing of the Rio Grand in the Mexican state of Coahuila, to reach the United States, continues to be a common route for island nationals. On Monday, the chief officer of the Border Patrol for the Valle sector, Texas, Gloria Chávez, reported the detention of “three groups of migrants” in the first four days of December, “a total of 420 migrants: 103 family members, 56 unaccompanied children, and 261 single adults from Cuba and several countries in Central and South America.”

#IslaEnFuga Llegan 20 cubanos a Florida en una balsa con el motor de un camión ruso Kamaz https://t.co/O38S84qNgZ | Video: Leitian Cedré/Facebook pic.twitter.com/ywFlSES27n

— 14ymedio (@14ymedio) December 6, 2022

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‘The Rate of New Business Failures in Cuba Predicted to Exceed 90 Percent if Changes Are Not Made’

Privately owned cafes are forced to import products the state will not sell them. (Leandro Perez Perez/Adelante)

14ymedio, Havana, 2 December 2022 — The report on small and medium-sized businesses (MSMEs) that the Camagüey newspaper Adelante published on Friday lays bare all the regulatory hurdles facing anyone trying to set up a business in Cuba. The situation is so bad that Miguel Hernandez Fernandez, a member of a local group trying to promote entrepreneurship in the province, warns, “The [business] failure rate in Latin America is around 80%. If conditions do not change, it will exceed 90% in Cuba.”

The article, entitled “One Year, Many Problems, Meager Production,” begins by warning of the difficulties faced by small and medium-sized businesses throughout the world in setting up shop. Little by little, however, the focus shifts to the root causes of the island’s particular issues.

One year after MSMEs became legal in Cuba, 181 companies — all of them private except one — had been given the green light. Of those, 68% are currently inactive. The article cites the high cost of obtaining and outfitting commercial real estate as well as the shortage of raw materials as the prime causes. But later in the article it becomes clear that some of these problems could be solved if there were the political will.

“Among the main obstacles are the drawn-out approval process and the legal limitations placed on business professionals. They come here with very good ideas but either Decree 49 prohibits their specific kinds of economic activity or they cannot engage directly in foreign trade,” says Ernesto Figueredo Castellanos, a provincial economic official. Both issues could be resolved by changing the law but the state’s efforts to retain control remains one of the big obstacles.

The shortage of hard currency is no small problem either. New businesses need it in order to buy raw materials but getting it is impossible because the banks simply do not have it. Figueredo Castellanos goes so far as to admit that, under these conditions, merchants can only replenish supplies by accepting donations or turning to the black market. Even then, buying things under the table is not really an option. “Their activities as a company are traceable, which does not allow them, for example, to shop for flour on the street, so many have had to import it.”

As a result, it is nearly impossible to get necessary supplies. One example described in the article is a cafe whose owners explain how they have to bring in everything from outside, including water, because the state will not sell them anything. “We have to get everything from the wholesale market or import it. That’s money that leaves the country and there is no way for me to claim it as a business expense. It also also increases costs, to say nothing of the rent,” notes Pedro Cespedes Aguilar, a partner at Alegre SRL. continue reading

Another complaint that businesspeople have is that they may enter into only one kind of business arrangement. “You can no longer invest in a limited liability corporation (sociedad de representación limitada or SRL) and be an administrator in another. It is illegal for Cuban citizens living abroad to be partners, which means finding anonymous partners outside the country because, under current conditions, Cuba needs liquidity to do business and acquire imports,” explains Figueredo Castellanos, who is very critical of the current regulations.

Those interviewed describe excessively high rents. Landlords are state-owned companies which charge 80,000 to 120,000 pesos, creating a financial burden for private businesses. “It would seem that companies would want to solve the rent problem,” says Hernandez Fernandez. He also notes that the level of computer skills remains very low. Registering an MSME is done through a digital platform without any support staff, and most of those filing applications do not have the required knowledge to do it.

“Communication with the Economics Ministry is something else that needs improving,” the article states. “During this investigation, it so happened that interested individuals wrote in but often received no response.”

“In Camagüey, there is an urgent need for the government to help private businesspeople connect with the rest of the local economy and develop a real relationship that enhances the regional development strategy. There are very good examples in Villa Clara and Havana that could well be implemented here,” says Hernandez Fernandez.

That is how Chefmigue has managed to survive. The company began production a year and a day after its business application was approved. The original intention was to produce fresh pastas but the price of wheat forced it to change course and it began processing fish for a state-owned company.

However, this is not without its own set of problems. The company is asking that it be allowed to import fishing gear, or hire fishermen, so it can obtain the best raw material. “The difference between the black market price and the one Fisheries wants to charge us is abysmal. And we don’t get access to the best fish. Lowering my costs would lower the price for consumers,” the owner claims.

“We cannot afford to get a divorce when what we urgently need is to join forces to increase the supply of goods and services for the people of Camagüey. We have to make sure that the sixty-four new food production MSMEs do not end up becoming part of the informal distribution network or leaving the province. To achieve this, they must be given the same attention as a state company,” said Yoseily Gongora Lopez, governor of Camagüey, in a meeting with businesspeople.”

Having the flexibility to import is a common theme among the businesspeople cited in the article. “If I could import flour directly, it would lower the cost of production along with the price consumers pay, which is our cost plus a 15% profit margin,” says Dayron, one of the founders of Marfoxi, a company which produces cookies, breads and other flour-based products. The owner reports that electrical blackouts have slowed production, which has motivated him to set up his own mill.

Madiu Quiroga Gomez, head of the Provincial Territorial Development Group believes several changes must be made next year if there is to be progress. “The new players need the option of managing collections and payments in hard currencies themselves and thus having cash flow out of the country. [It is important to] to support transparency in bidding procedures and the awarding of contracts, to promote national investment by Cubans in the economy and, above all, to develop training courses and opportunities for people not covered by current legislation,” she suggests.

The article ends by urging the state to get involved in finding solutions. The interested parties do not want it to completely let go of the reins, however. “You have to build it on the basis of state control,” it reads, “with the government playing a coordinating role, and with collaboration between the state and private companies steadily ’rowing’ towards a sound and sustainable economy.”

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“We Will Never Return to Cuba, We Will Not Have the Exiles’ Crick in the Neck”

The exhibition ’Martín Domínguez El exilio otro’ was inaugurated at the Taller Gorría Gallery, in Old Havana on December 5. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Reinaldo Escobar, Havana, 6 December 2022 — An exhibition entitled Martín Domínguez El exilio otro [the Other Exile], inaugurated at the Taller Gorría Gallery in Old Havana on December 5 (coincidentally, the Day of the Builder in Cuba), did justice to the Spanish architect Martín Domínguez Esteban (1897-1970) who was behind works as important as the Focsa building, Radiocentro (today the Yara cinema and headquarters of the Cuban Institute of Radio and Television), the current Ministry of Communications, the Marianao City Hall and numerous homes.

We say that he “was behind” because his name did not appear as a signing architect but as “treasurer” or “decorator” and this was because Domínguez never managed to have his professional title revalidated in Cuba.

He escaped from Francoist Spain where he had been “purged for life” for his role in building the military defenses of the Republican side of Madrid in 1936. He arrived in Havana, by the way, in January 1937 and stayed in this city for more than a quarter of a century.

Despite the burden of not being able to show a recognized title, many used his services, including former president Ramón Grau San Martín, who entrusted him with his summer residence in Varadero. continue reading

His son relates that Domínguez replied that he felt conservative in regards to the private family and liberal in politics. (14ymedio)

At the beginning of the Revolution, he participated in the construction of popular houses promoted by the National Institute of Savings and Housing. His reputation led him to the office of Commander Ernesto Guevara, who openly asked him for his political position. His son relates that Domínguez replied that he felt conservative in regards to the private family and liberal in politics. “We’re doing badly, Galician,” said the Argentine, and that same day he decided to leave Cuba.

He collected what he could carry in his car and put it on the ferry that still offered trips between Havana and Miami. He was in that city for a very short time because he decided to settle in New York.

Still in Miami, his son, a clever boy with the same name and who has also followed a career as an architect, was probing him to find out how that adventure would end. And this was the unforgettable response he received: “We are never going to return to Cuba. We are not going to have the exiles’ crick in the neck, like the Spaniards who said ’in two months we will be back in Madrid’. We are not going back to Cuba, we must look ahead and rebuild.”

And he didn’t come back. He died in New York in September 1970 at the age of 72 knowing that wherever he went he left a lasting and useful mark. His work is studied today on the subject of Modern Cuban Architecture. This exhibition, which will be open to the public until December 12, pays tribute to him and fills an unacceptable gap in the memory of Cubans.

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Cuban Bishops Call for Freedom for a ‘Good Number’ of Prisoners at Christmas

Prelates reflect on the current Cuban reality, but avoid explicit mention of the Government’s responsibility in the situation. (COCC)

14ymedio, Havana, 1 December 2022 — On Wednesday, the Conference of Catholic Bishops of Cuba published a message in which it signaled “the hunger, loneliness and lack of freedom” experienced by the citizens of the Island and once again called for freedom for the political prisoners. The statement, whose theme is the preparation for Christmas, also recalls that 25 years ago the Government agreed to declare the day as a holiday.

The bishops announced the visit, this coming January, of Cardinal Beniamino Stella, who served as apostolic nuncio — ambassador of the Vatican on the Island — during the Special Period. Stella, a top diplomat and critic of Castroism, was the one who organized the trip of Pope John Paul II in 1998, the first made by a pontiff to Cuba.

The commemoration of the half-century of that visit, which “marked the history” of relations between the Catholic Church and the Cuban Government, was proposed by the bishops to Pope Francis at a recent meeting in Vatican City. Beginning January 24, Stella will tour all Cuban dioceses, the statement says.

The rest of the message is dedicated by the prelates to reflecting on the current Cuban reality, avoiding the explicit mention of the responsibility of the Government in the different crises that the country is experiencing. They suggest that an atmosphere of “fear, distrust, daily routine, lies and hatred” prevails in Cuba.

They alluded to “the families who suffer emigration” and called, cryptically, to recognize the “signs,” that are “guiding, encouraging and warning us of the dangers” in the country in which our history is being “woven.” They also regretted the “pain and loneliness of so many elderly people, sick or suffering from serious difficulties and deficiencies.” continue reading

At the most critical moment of the statement, the bishops mentioned “those who suffer hunger, loneliness, lack of freedom and who expect from us a gesture of clemency or mercy. How much joy it would bring for their families and people in general to know that, this Christmas, a good number of those who are imprisoned would be granted freedom and returned to their homes to re-insert themselves into their usual lives and begin the new year!” they declared.

The requests of amnesty for the prisoners have been frequent on the part of the Catholic Church, which in 2015 took advantage of the visit of Pope Francis and managed to get the Government to release more than 3,500 inmates. However, it has had little success in its demands for release of Cubans detained after the protests of July 11, 2021.

They called for the hope of the Cuban people “in the midst of so much darkness and discouragement,” and to commit to the transformation of history “from within.” “No one can fight in life in isolation,” they said, while pointing out the need for a “community, a homeland of brothers where everyone can live with dignity, where we listen to each other and engage in dialogue to discern the future, where we fight for the good of all, especially those who have been marginalized for different reasons.”

The text concludes by sending the blessing of the prelates to the Cubans of the Island and to those who are “dispersed around the world.”

For Jorge, a Catholic layman from the diocese of Santa Clara consulted by 14ymedio, the message of the bishops “has to do more with forgiveness,” although “the situation in Cuba stands out: hopelessness, sadness, divisions.”

“Some of us believe that the messages could be more out front against the Government,” he says, “but the bishops didn’t forget the families who suffer from the emigration of their members, the condition of the prisoners, the pain and loneliness of the elderly, those who suffer great shortages and lack of liberty. It’s a very simple message that is more about hope,” he says.

Jorge points out that the most interesting thing in the statement is the announcement of Cardinal Stella’s visit, “a nuncio who knows our reality perfectly.” The Vatican envoy will find, he thinks, “a Government that is on the defensive,” which will not welcome this visit or will interpret it as “supervision.” In addition, “they won’t have much time to prepare.”

Cardinal Beniamino Stella’s last visit to the Island took place in 2015, in the midst of the “thaw” between Cuba and the United States. His return occurs in a similar context, when new attempts at dialogue are being developed between the two Governments, which, unlike the last time, have dispensed with the mediation of the Catholic Church.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Hundreds of Young Cubans Dedicate Themselves to Robbing Ciego de Avila Farms

Bananas in La Cuba, located in Ciego de Ávila. (Invasor)

14ymedio, Havana, 6 December 2022 — To the multiple obstacles that complicate the work of banana producers in Ciego de Ávila – debts, bureaucracy, lack of agricultural inputs and a lousy distribution system – another one has been added: the violent theft of bunches of the fruit.

The list does not even include sales to the tourism sector. After several years of sale, the farmers realized that the Ministry of Tourism itself was cheating them. Victor Limia, official of the provincial direction of Finances and Prices, did not dare to admit it to the newspaper lnvasor.

“Either there are costs that have not been contemplated and they have to adjust the sale price, or Tourism imposed a purchase price ignoring the real value of what happens in the field,” he limited himself to saying. “We have to check the files,” he conceded.

With 70 million pesos in losses at the end of November, the case of the Ciego de Ávila agricultural company La Cuba – famous for the “exuberant productions” of yesteryear, affirms the province’s Communist Party newspaper – is a notable example of the gap between investment and gain.

The additional cost of La Cuba is 20 million pesos above the annual plan. The dilemma could be resolved if the administrators dispense with the purchase of fertilizers. But, without them, the company’s production would be mediocre, calculates Invasor. It is a vicious circle that affects, first of all, the pocket of the producer, who must forget about the advances and juggle to repay the credits on time.

Local officials, led by Liván Izquierdo Alonso, first secretary of the Communist Party in Ciego de Ávila, visited the company and concluded the obvious: the farmers “are earning very little.” continue reading

Izquierdo Alonso walked through the furrows and talked with the producers. Faced with the complaints of Armelio Díaz, a farmer of almost 60 years, the Party cadre said: “No, you have to earn more, because it is very hard work to hoe the fields starting from dawn.” Díaz replied that he usually couldn’t have breakfast, and that he had to make lunch at his house “because there isn’t any at the company.”

But even if the working conditions were given, the other great impediment to normal production is robbery in the banana plantations and banditry, which is increasingly violent. “Last night they almost killed me,” said Jorge Virella, another farmer. “The bananas are stunted and the theft of the bunches makes things worse. The bandits come in carts and they completely clean you out.”

Although the thieves were captured, there are hundreds of young people in the Avilanian countryside dedicated to robbing farms. The situation has worsened for exactly one year. In 2021, 38 of these criminal acts were registered in La Cuba, and the numbers, according to its directive at the time, “are not enough to describe the magnitude of the problem.”

Of those cases, the Police could only solve 20, which involved thieves from the three municipalities that surround the lands of La Cuba: Primero de Enero, Ciro Redondo and Baraguá. Half remained unclear, despite the fact that the company’s workers provided “lists of names of people who do not work and have been seen loaded with bananas or have engaged in pre-criminal behavior.”

“Everyone here knows who they are and they don’t even have a warning letter,” they denounce. With the shortages and the food crisis, criminals have redoubled their robbery attempts and have become even more aggressive against the farmers. Since then, the official newspaper affirms, they have used clandestine warehouses to store the hundreds of pounds of stolen bananas, which they transport in private trucks.

The bandits that the producers of La Cuba continue to complain about “go out at night in eight wagons and attack in groups throwing stones, shooting arrows with pieces of iron… In the face of this organized band, many, unprotected, fear for their safety; above all because blows and wounds are already experienced,” affirms Invasor.

At the end of 2021, the official newspaper reported a series of “energetic” measures taken by the provincial prosecutor’s office to intimidate thieves. A few days before the close of the year 2022, the situation remains the same.

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Cuban Embassy in Madrid Activates an Alarm to Ward Off Otero AlcAntara’s Friends

Amnesty International and some friends of Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara brought a cake to the Cuban Consulate in Madrid. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Madrid, 2 December 2022 — About twenty activists from Amnesty International (AI) and friends of Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara gathered this Friday in front of the Cuban Embassy in Madrid to remember the birthday of the artist, who has been in prison since July 11, 2021, and to demand his release .

Olatz Cacho, spokesperson for the NGO in Spain, knocked on the door of the diplomatic headquarters with the intention of leaving a cake and a letter addressed to Otero Alcántara, but was ignored. “A fire alarm started to sound,” he told 14ymedio. “They have not opened the door for us or told us anything. We have been there for a while but then we have had to return, with a rather uncomfortable noise in our ears.”

The objective, according to Cacho, was to celebrate the anniversary of Luis Manuel, who turns 35 this December 2. “We want him to be released immediately and unconditionally. He has already been in jail for two years and he is a prisoner of conscience who should never have spent a single day there,” the activist asserted. continue reading

Along with AI were several friends of Alcántara, including Luz Escobar, Julio Llópiz-Casal, Carolina Barrero, Solveig Font, Nonardo Perea and Yanelys Núñez. Those gathered remembered some of the artist’s performances, such as ¿Dónde está Mella? [Where is Mella?], with which in 2016 he became a living statue of the student leader Julio Antonio Mella to ask where his statue, which was located in the Manzana de Gómez, had ended up after his conversion into a luxury hotel.

Núñez spoke with Alcántara yesterday and told this newspaper that the artist was “fine, there, surviving.” The activist said that, at least, the leader of the San Isidro Movement had not had problems with other common prisoners, as has happened on other occasions, and that he had no health problems. “Today he had a visit from the family, luckily, that’s a good thing, so he doesn’t spend his birthday too far from the people he loves.”

Alcántara is serving a five-year sentence in the maximum security prison of Guanajay, Artemisa, for the crimes of insulting the symbols of the country, contempt and public disorder.

The artist was arrested on July 11, 2021 before being able to join the protest that day in Havana and tried along with several people, including rapper Maykel Castillo Osorbo, also in prison now for political crimes.

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There Will be a Third Round for the Municipal Elections in 9 Constituencies in Cuba

The polling stations reopened this Sunday in Cuba for the second round of the municipal elections. (Wilfredo Yera/Invader)

EFE/14ymedio, Havana, 5 December 2022 — On Sunday, Cuba celebrated the second round of the elections of the delegates to the municipal assemblies of People’s Power in 925 constituencies, with a call to the polls of almost one million voters.

The National Electoral Commission (CEN) reported that on this day 2,748 polling stations were enabled for voting in constituencies where none of the candidates proposed by residents reached more than half of the valid votes in the elections held on November 27.

The president of the CEN, Alina Balseiro, told state television that the elections have taken place “with discipline and organization” and that their final results will be announced next Wednesday, December 7. The official also added that there was “a high rate of participation,” although no data has been released so far to support it.

Participation in the first round of these elections was 68.58% (31.42% abstention), the lowest since 1976, when this type of voting began on the Island.

That figure represented 5.7 million Cubans out of a total of just over 8.3 million called to the polls and 11,502 delegates were then elected, according to preliminary data on the results released by the CEN authorities. In addition, more than 10% of people voted blank or null. continue reading

Balseiro indicated this Sunday that nine constituencies from seven provinces are expected to hold a third round next Thursday. In those cases there are those where there are ties between two candidates or none of the proposed obtain more than half of the valid votes.

According to CEN authorities, in the 15 provinces there was at least one municipality in the second round and Havana and the eastern Santiago de Cuba, Guantánamo and Granma were the regions with the largest number of polling places on this occasion, due to the high numbers of registered voters. on your electoral roll.

The function of the municipal delegates consists of “exercising government, to intervene in state decisions that affect the entire community” and they will represent the problems, complaints and opinions of their constituency, according to the website of the National Assembly.

The candidacies of the delegates are proposed directly by the residents of the electoral constituencies – although independent candidacies are hindered to prevent them from prospering – while those of the deputies to Parliament are entrusted to candidacy commissions.

Based on the results of the process, on December 17 the municipal assemblies will be constituted, in addition to the election of their presidents and vice presidents and the appointment of secretaries.

The election of delegates to the municipal assemblies of Popular Power is held every five years and is the first step in the electoral process that will close in 2023 with the gradual renewal of the country’s main political positions, including the President of the Republic, a position to which the current head of state, Miguel Díaz-Canel, can run for a second term.

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