Two researchers cancel their stay on the island at the request of the German Academic Exchange Service
A group of tourists in front of the Hotel Inglaterra in Havana / 14ymedio
14ymedio, Havana, 11 December 2024 — The German Foreign Ministry has issued a security warning for those planning to visit Cuba. In a notice in force since December 5, it informs travelers of the problems with electricity generation that, in the last two months, have caused at least three total power outages on the island.
Although in these cases the the national power network was eventually restored, “the capacity to produce electricity does not cover the needs,” the note points out. “On October 17, 2024, the Cuban government informed the population of another worsening of the energy situation in the country,” the text adds, attributing the blackouts to other difficulties and referencing “considerable restrictions” that extend beyond the days of total electrical collapse.
The energy instability is causing “water supply problems” throughout the country, restrictions on public activities and also in tourist centres such as the Varadero beach resort in Matanzas, the warning states. Only buildings with electric generators, such as hotels, can enjoy lighting and air conditioning during power outages, it says. Meanwhile, rescue services are functioning only “basically” and the capacity to provide medical care is also restricted.
“Streets and roads are left unlit at night, public transport is not running or is only operating in a reduced capacity. Internet and mobile phone connections are being cut off,” the statement said. “Food refrigeration cannot be guaranteed at all times under these circumstances, nor can a supply of hot water.” continue reading
“Many public facilities are closed or without air conditioning,” acknowledges the ministry, which calls for “caution” when preparing for vacations on the Island
The difficulties that this situation brings to trade and electronic payments are also mentioned by Germany’s Foreign Ministry: “The card payment system and the provision of money from ATMs” also suffer interruptions in their operation and, in these intervals without electricity “only a few banks are open” to which it must be added that the gas stations for refueling “operate only with restrictions.”
“Many public facilities are closed or without air conditioning,” the ministry notes, urging “caution” when planning a vacation on the island. However, “if you want to travel despite everything,” the notice lists elements to take into consideration such as staying informed through local media and social networks about the situation in the country; avoiding moving around in the dark due to the dangers of being assaulted and robbed; and carrying flashlights, candles and batteries to recharge mobile phones during longer power outages.
The news confirms the testimony that a source in the Cuban academic sector sent to 14ymedio this week. Two researchers from the University of Frankfurt were advised by the DAAD (German Academic Exchange Service), which financed their stay, not to travel to the island because it is not a safe destination. The women had to cancel their tickets to fly, which they had already purchased and were scheduled to arrive at the end of November.
The warning from the German Foreign Ministry follows the announcement by Condor Airlines that it “will not offer flights to Cuba next summer, and will transfer its capacity to destinations that enjoy greater demand.” The statement to clarify why it will stop flying to the island as of this coming May has been another hard blow to Cuba’s Ministry of Tourism’s expectations of travelers from Germany, because it clearly highlights the decline in the popularity of Cuba as a destination.
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All of them died “due to a combination of poor medical care, poor nutrition and terrible prison conditions,” an NGO denounces.
The deaths were the result of torture and medical negligence, according to accusations from NGOs / EFE
14ymedio, Havana, 12 December 2024 — At least seven prisoners died in the custody of Cuban authorities last November, the Cuban Prison Documentation Center (CDPC) reported Wednesday. The latest case was that of Jorge Luis Torres Vaillant, who died Monday in the Boniato prison in Santiago de Cuba, after 28 days with fever without receiving the medical assistance he requested.
According to the report, two of these deaths, that of political prisoner Manuel de Jesús Guillén Esplugas and that of Raúl Clejer Steris, were accompanied by allegations of violence. The other five deceased were an inmate named Maikel, in the Cuba Sí prison, and four prisoners from the Quivicán prison (Mayabeque), whose identities are unknown. All of them, the organization reported, “died due to a combination of poor medical care, poor nutrition and terrible prison conditions.”
According to CDPC records, a total of 49 prisoners have died so far in 2024, four of them political prisoners.
In these last four cases, the deaths were the result of torture and medical negligence, Prisoners Defenders (PD) reported in its monthly report on Wednesday. “We identified 15 types of torture and showed that 80% of the political prisoners analyzed (181) have suffered five or more” of these types of treatment, the report added.
PD also verified that 70 prisoners suffer from clinically diagnosed mental health disorders and 650 suffer from various medical pathologies.
In its report, the Madrid-based organization also reported that the number of political prisoners registered in November is the highest of the year. The number stands at 1,148, 34 more than last month – three of them minors – a number that “shot up” due to the “wave of arrests” during the most recent protests in the country.
“The Cuban regime’s response to the massive and spontaneous mobilizations that took place throughout the island, mostly to demand basic services, has resulted in 30 of the 34 new political prisoners in November in Cuba: 17 in Villa Clara, seven in Santiago continue reading
de Cuba, three in Ciego de Ávila, two in Camagüey, and one in Pinar del Río,” the NGO reported.
In Villa Clara, where the highest number of arrests were recorded, there were strong protests on November 7 “motivated by more than 48 hours without electricity,” the report said, indicating that hundreds of residents gathered in front of the headquarters of the Municipal Assembly of People’s Power, “banging pots and pans and shouting slogans such as ’they will not silence us!’, demanding the restoration of electricity service.”
The Madrid-based organization also reported that the number of political prisoners registered in November is the highest of the year.
One of those detained was José Gabriel Barrenechea Chávez, an independent journalist and contributor to 14ymedio, who is being held without legal protection in La Pendiente prison in Santa Clara. Since 2019, PD indicated, the journalist “has been “regulated” to prevent him from leaving the country, he is denied the right to work and his books are banned in Cuba.”
In the last 12 months, the list of political prisoners in Cuba has added a total of 155 new names (an average of 13 new prisoners each month). In that period, there were a total of 1,213 political prisoners, “all of them tortured in an eschatological manner without any international reaction to prevent it,” the report accused, which detailed that, from July 11, 2021 until last November, Cuba has held a total of 1,785 detainees for political reasons.
Regarding repressive actions in the country last month, the Cuban Observatory of Human Rights (OCDH) recorded at least 253 cases, of which 89 were arbitrary detentions, while 164 were reported as “other abuses.”
In a report published on Monday, the NGO added that “the main abuses, in addition to arrests, occurred against political prisoners, common prisoners and their families.” It also alleged that the homes of various activists were besieged, in addition to “police summons, harassments and fines.” According to the report, there were more cases in Havana, Matanzas and Villa Clara.
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Benito Zambrano in Havana, during the International Film Festival, which ends this Sunday. / EFE
EFE, Laura Bécquer (via 14ymedio), Havana, 12 December 2024 — /Spanish filmmaker Benito Zambrano defended in an interview with EFE the new generation of young independent filmmakers that has emerged in Cuba, a collective favored, in his opinion, by the arrival of new technologies.
“There is a whole group of filmmakers very well-trained and capable of creating and making cinema without the need for Cuban television or the Icaic (Cuban State Institute of Cinematographic Art and Industry),” said the Sevillian director, after giving a talk in the context of the New Latin American Film Festival of Havana.
The winner of several Goya awards for the films Solas and Intemperie pointed out that “the Cuba of Habana Blues (his second film project and a great success on the Island and in Spain) of the years 2003-2004 is not the same, cinematographically speaking.”
“The technology has allowed many more people to make movies and to be creatively more daring,” said Zambrano, who came to Cuba this time invited by the Transculture Program of UNESCO and the European Union to participate in meetings at the International School of Film and Television (Eictv), the Higher Institute of Art and the Havana Film Festival.
The Spanish filmmaker, who premiered his latest film El Salto in April of this year, also acknowledged that “it is not easy to raise a (cinematographic) project from here (in Cuba),” especially because “the Cuban film industry is very small and dependent on money and external financing”
The director of other films such as La voz dormida, Padre coraje and Pan de limón con semillas de poppy, also confessed his close relationship with the Island, where he grew up as a filmmaker. “Cuba is always part of me,” he confessed.
Zambrano was trained at Eictv, a multinational project created in 1986 and supported by figures such as the Colombian writer Gabriel García Márquez. The Island has been a constant in his artistic creation, as he has stated on several occasions.
The 45th edition of the New Latin American Cinema Festival of Havana, which began on December 5 and lasts until this Sunday, has 110 films in competition – 89 fewer than last year – from 42 countries, among which Cuba, Mexico, Venezuela, Argentina and Spain stand out.
Titles such as Ella se queda (Mexico), Fenómenos naturales (Cuba, Argentina and France) and Los capítulos perdidos (Venezuela) are part of the selection within fiction feature films.
However, media attention has focused this year on the international premiere of the first two chapters of the new Netflix series, based on the famous novel One Hundred Years of Solitude by the Colombian Nobel Gabriel García Márquez.
The names of the winners of the Coral awards are scheduled to be announced this Friday.
Translated by Regina Anavy
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The gas is essential for production because, without it,” you cannot make ice cream at all,” explains an employee.
On Friday the ice cream parlor on 23rd and L streets was closed. / 14ymedio
14ymedio, Natalia López Moya, Havana, 6 December 2024 — There is less hustle and bustle than usual around the white and blue facade on Rancho Boyeros Avenue these days. Coppelia’s main ice cream production plant in Havana has been shut down for more than two months due to a shortage of ammonia, a gas essential for freezing the product. The company’s ice cream is sold at cafes and food service establishments, including the iconic ice cream cathedral on 23rd and L streets in the city’s Vedado district.
Niurka, a company employee whose name has been changed to protect her identity, has been laid off since late September. Though she still collects part of her salary, her income has been significantly reduced. “Everyone knows that no one at Coppelia lives off their salary,” she admits. In Lawton, the neighborhood where she lives, Niurka has at least twenty customers who buy boxes of ice cream from her, “direct from the factory.”
“They ask me when I’ll be getting more but nobody is giving us a date. Every week I call to ask and they tell me that the ammonia still hasn’t arrived,” she explains. Niurka’s dilemma, like that of many other Coppelia employees, is whether to wait until the raw materials arrive so she can return to her job, or look for work somewhere else in order to support her family.
“In recent years we’ve had several shutdowns, some due to supply shortages. We’ve also run out of containers and some flavors but, this time, it is a complete shutdown. They cannot make ice cream at all because there is no way to chill anything,” she says. “It’s no longer a question of making vanilla ice cream instead of chocolate because there is no ammonia for continue reading
either one.”
A limited run of higher-quality Coppelia ice cream was produced for the the G77 Summit in Havana
Another employee recalls that in September 2023, when production had fallen due to a shortage of ingredients, a limited run of higher-quality Coppelia ice cream was produced for guests attending an official event at the G77 Summit in Havana. “They virtually militarized the factory to prevent employees from stealing some of the ice cream,” he says. On the day they moved it out of the plant, they allowed the workers to sample “a small cup of it.”
By November of last year, the ups and downs at the plant were having a severe impact at the giant Coppelia ice cream parlor, which was forced to close its doors because the factory was not producing enough ice cream to serve its sit-down customers. On that occasion, the problem was a shortage of milk and sugar, which halted production of a product in high demand on the island, especially in months when temperatures rise above 25 degrees Celsius.
Though thermometers began dropping early this month with the onset of winter, not even Havana’s mild seasonal climate was enough to prevent would-be customers at the country’s premier ice cream parlor on Friday from becoming visibly frustrated. The outlet has been closed for several days. “After Hurricane Raphael we were only open for a few hours on two days because there was no ice cream,”a groundskeeper explained. He reported, however, that Coppelia was selling four-liter boxes of ice cream despite the shutdown. “But they did not come from the Boyeros factory because it is closed. We have not received anything from there for more than a month and a half.” As for when things might be up and running again, “There’s no reopening date. We just don’t know,” he said.
Coppelia’s closure coincides with the opening of the Havana Film Festival on Thursday, leaving a bad taste in customers’ mouths. “In the old days, when you left the cinema, you would head straight over to Coppelia. It was like a ritual,” recalled a young man outside the Yara theater, who ultimately decided to go instead to a privately owned café that serves ice cream. Though its prices are not subsidized like at its state-owned counterpart, there is no interruption in service. “They don’t seem to experience hurricanes or breakdowns,” he noted ironically.
“Ice cream production is one of Cuban industry’s most energy-intensive manufacturing processes”
A retired engineer who worked in the dairy sector for more than two decades explained the complex situation the factory is facing. “Today, it’s a shortage of ammonia but you have to remember that ice cream production is one of Cuban industry’s most energy-intensive manufacturing processes, he said.” Coppelia uses a two-step refrigeration process that involves vapor compression, which relies on ammonia.”
The engineer details the complexities of operation. “They need temperature extremes. One at the high end to process the milk and other raw materials, and another at the low end to allow the product to cool and harden,” he explains. “The whole process consumes a lot of electricity and cannot be interrupted at any point. A power outage that affects the sequence can ruin the ice cream.” His explanation, coming in the midst of the third disruption to the nation’s energy grid in less than two months, underlines the vulnerability of industry.
“The plant has its own generators but there is still the problem of fuel supply. The industry is not seen as a strategic or vital sector so it does not get high priority,” he added. “As things stand now, even if it survives the ammonia crisis, it will be very difficult to continue producing a reliable, high-quality product.”
Coppelia’s Havana factory is located on the same site on Rancho Boyeros Avenue as the former San Bernardo Lácteos S.A factory, whose original owners lost it to nationalization after Fidel Castro came to power in January 1959.
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Baseball players of the Marianao team / Cubadebate
14ymedio/Swing Completo, Havana, 10 December 10, 2024 — The more than twenty players of the Marianao team from Havana abandoned their coach, Annie Fonseca, by failing to show up for the game they had this Monday. The club, which is in last place in the Provincial Series, forfeited the game to Plaza by “not being present” in an act that the Facebook page Por La Goma described as “detestable” and “macho.”
According to the same publication, the team has a “miserable” attitude by “questioning the ability of a coach just because she is a woman.” It also highlighted Jordan William Bustamante, Daniel Yanes, Pedro Remolar, Yankiel Hernández, Kevin González, Rayco Víctores, Daniel Escalona and Dayron Miranda (injured), the only players from Marianao who did show up for the game.
Por La Goma reported that in the series there are teams like El Cotorro, which is also lagging behind but does not question its coaches. “You can have problems and situations, you can have difficulties and differences, but the pledged word cannot be ’prostituted’ with abandonment; that is not for good men, that is not correct.”
The position of the players generated other reactions. The women’s magazine Alas Tensas interpreted the athletes’ decision “as an act of rejection towards the female figure in command, which has ignited the debate on gender equality in Cuban sport.”
Annie Fonseca won the national softball championship in Guantánamo (1998) with Havana / Facebook/Fidel Ramírez Coll
Annie Fonseca, who was chosen this year to take charge of Marianao in the 64th edition of the Provincial Series of Havana, is not an ’improvised’ coach. As a player, she won the national softball championship in Guantánamo (1998) with Havana. She is currently in the fifth year of a degree in Physical Culture, Sport and Recreation at the University of Sports.
Last year, when Marianao became the runner-up, Fonseca was a bench coach. In November, in a chat with Swing Completo, she accepted that running the club would be a challenge because sexist beliefs still persist. However, she took on the challenge. “I firmly believe that women also have the right to earn respect within the field of baseball. We’re here to build and help the sport that we all love,” she declared.
“I was born a baseball player, and I’m a woman,” the coach said. “I can’t be more woman. Everything is in the person.” Fonseca has relied on elite players such as Dayron Miranda and Jordan William Bustamante.
This Tuesday Por La Goma considered that the sports authorities of Havana should “reformulate their strategies, allowing women who have talent and dedication to represent themselves.”
Translated by Regina Anavy
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The authorities promise that they will “solve” the supply problem, which has been affecting the province for months.
11% of medical offices in the province are in poor condition / ’Periódico 26’
14ymedio, Havana, 10 December 2024 — Unsanitary medical care is one of the consequences suffered by the inhabitants of Las Tunas due to the poor water supply. According to the official newspaper Periódico 26 on Monday, 216 of the 517 medical clinics in the province do not have water, which is “detrimental to the quality of Primary Care.” This means that 4 out of 10 do not have the service.
The provincial newspaper also explains that 60% of the centers “are in good condition, but 11% are currently in a bad state in that regard.” The newspaper did not report the conditions of the remaining 29%, but the complaints and posts by patients on social media illustrate the crisis facing some of the facilities that constitute the first step of primary care on the island.
Faced with this situation, the authorities promise better training for health personnel, greater access to the Internet, “revitalizing the clinics” and opening three new ones. They also “confirmed their willingness to solve” the water supply. However, the problem of supply has worsened in recent weeks, but it has been dragging on since at least the beginning of last year, either due to droughts or lack of access to the water network. continue reading
Authorities promise better training for health personnel, greater access to the Internet, “revitalizing clinics” and opening three new ones
The instability of the water supply significantly hampers the operation of health care centers already affected by the exodus of health professionals and the lack of supplies. The family doctor program was one of the crown jewels of health care on the island and the construction of thousands of these facilities, which included an area for consultations and another as housing for doctors, unleashed an official frenzy in the late 1980s and during the 1990s.
In February 2023, the province’s 23 reservoirs had only 106 million cubic meters of water, equivalent to 30% of their capacity. The low accumulation was mainly due to a drastic reduction in rainfall, which at the end of January of that year only reached 6.8 millimeters (mm), well below the historical average for that month of 30.3 mm.
Months later, in November, the problem was access to the drinking water network. The situation was on the verge of collapse in the province. With the reservoirs 75% full, some 90,000 people in Las Tunas had no running water service. A problem caused, in large part, by the lack of fuel to pump the water and breakdowns in equipment and pipes. A month later, 100,000 people were receiving water by tanker trucks and another 6,267 by train service.
Since then, the problem has worsened, but the press has avoided reporting the number of people affected or saying how long the service would take, with some places going months without water. At that time, the authorities promised to stabilize the service to the population, but this did not happen .
The press avoided giving the number of those affected or saying how long the service would take, with in some places going months without water.
Almost a year later, as of this October, the province acquired 10 electric pumps to resume service, but it was not until November that the installations began. The water pumping equipment in the main city had stopped working because, for more than two decades, they had only received light maintenance.
The same newspaper, Periódico 26, reported last month that, of the pumps that were purchased – the official press did not clarify their origin – only four had been installed. And one of those, due to a missing cable, did not start working immediately.
In total, the equipment guarantees a delivery of 375 liters per second of the 500 that the authorities had promised. However, the problem of supply in the province is not limited to sending water from the dams and wells to the water treatment plant and from there to the villages, but also to repairing pipes, and fixing the leaks in the lines that limit the arrival of water to homes.
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From January to November of this year, 16,376 Cuban nationals have requested asylum, a total of 22% of all cases
Migrants waiting to complete their paperwork at Comar in Tapachula, in the Mexican state of Chiapas. / EFE/Juan Manuel Blanco
14ymedio, Mexico, 5 December 2024 — According to statistics from the Mexican Commission for Refugee Assistance (COMAR ) published this Tuesday, from January to November of this year, 16,376 Cubans formally applied for asylum, a total of 22% of all cases. This means that nationals of the island have become second largest group to apply for asylum in Mexico during 2024.
This is the second time in three years that Cubans have become the second largest group to to request asylum. This also happened in 2022 when 18,181 requested asylum. In both cases, Hondurans headed the list with 31,436 two years ago and 22,550 in 2024. Only in 2023 did a variation occur when 44,110 Haitians formally applied, surpassing 41,848 Honduran citizens and 18,450 Cubans
This year, applications for asylum in Mexico fell by 50%, from 140,725 to 73,317. Nevertheless, in the case of Cuba, the number has been stable in the last few years.
COMAR also reported that it completed processing for 5,124 applications submitted by Cubans, of which 3,514 were granted refugee status. In this sense, Cuba is second in the list of nationalities with a favorable outcome and is fourth if data from 2013 onward is taken into account because this adds 10,400 in more than a decade, behind only Honduras ( 73.095 ), Venezuela (25,683), and El Salvador (21,200). continue reading
Of the nine offices where the Commission for Aid to Refugees receives applications, the office in Tapachula, in Chiapas, a border state at the southernmost point in Mexico, is where the most applications are gathered, a total of 47,032 (64%). In this city, one of the primary stopping points for migrants in Mexican territory, in the last two months six caravans have formed bound for the United States, motivated by the pending arrival of Donald Trump to the White House in January of 2025.
The last two caravans have been dissolved by the Mexican authorities
Although the Ministry of the Interior has assured that at the end of November there will be an “open route” for migrants in transit through the country, the last two caravans have been dissolved by the Mexican authorities. The Fray Matías de Córdova Center for Human Rights in Chiapas denounced that a common procedure is that Immigration Agents “coerce families to get in their cars and in exchange they offer a document that allows regular transit for the next 20 days. But we have not seen this document and from experience we know that, in the end, they don’t give them anything, that it is only to break up the caravans,” the Center asserted.
The Center has also documented: “acts of intimidation by the National Immigration Institute and the National Guard aimed at migrant families and defenders of human rights.”
For Irineo Mujica, leader of the Peoples Without Borders Organization and one of the organizers of the migrant caravans, with these actions “the government of Mexico is sending a message to Trump.” In an interview with 14ymedio the activist asserted that: “immigration is used to negotiate.”
“They create a bottleneck in the south of the country , they take immigrants out of the route and put them at risk.” She added: “they bet on the exhaustion and breaking the spirit” of people and their main motivation she continued “is political and the immigrants always end up losing.”
Ever since taking power, the Mexican president Claudia Sheinbaum promised a “humanitarian migrant strategy” and the development of an industrial center in the south of the country although she did not provide more details. Nevertheless she did report in the past month that the daily crossing of immigrants at the United States border had fallen by 75% from December of 2023, owing to action by the Mexican government. This statistic was issued in response to threats from Donald Trump to impose tariffs on exports from Mexico to the United States if Mexico does not find a way to reduce the migratory flow and organized crime.
Translated by William Fitzhugh
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There is fuel for only 60% of the capital’s microtaxis, says the Minister of Transport
A ’gazelle’ taxi stand in Havana / 14ymedio
14ymedio, Havana, 5 December 2024 — The catastrophic energy situation, which in the early hours of Wednesday caused the third collapse of the national electricity system in less than two months, is once again seriously affecting transport. Havana now has a limit of 9,800 liters of diesel per day for the service of the microtaxis, known as “gazelles.” As recognized by the Minister of Transport, Eduardo Rodríguez Dávila, “this does not cover the demand for the service, nor is it enough to supply the entire fleet.”
The fuel allows service for only between 225 and 228 microtaxis, just over 60% of the 435 vehicles. Assigning only one is not enough on the longest routes of between 24 and 26 kilometers, which affects the last laps,” the minister explains.
Out of the total number of vehicles, on the other hand, there are “80 that are paralyzed in the long term,” the official also reported. And more: “an average” of between 40 and 45 gazelles break down and don’t complete the maintenance service “to solve the different problems.” That is, only about 300 vehicles are operating regularly.
There are other problems such as “detachment of the side doors, broken windows and seats” and “social indisciplines”
“Gazelle minibuses are in intense overexploitation in their two work systems (day and night),” says Rodríguez Dávila, who summarized the 23 routes in more than 600,000 kilometers in the capital.
In addition to the lack of fuel and the “technical shutdowns in the workshop and eventualities due to lack of parts, pieces and accessories,” there are other problems such as “detachment of the side doors, breakage of continue reading
windows and seats” and “social indisciplines.” These do not allude only to travelers who don’t pay for the ticket – which has a cost of 5 pesos – but also to “public altercations or manifestations of aggression to drivers.”
To alleviate the problems, the company in charge of the service, Metrotaxis, has implemented a series of measures listed by Rodríguez Dávila, although it is not clear that they are effective. For example, the “redistribution by routes for the supply of fuel at bus terminals, with six points in different locations in the city, as well as the extension of the supply hours until two in the morning,” for “greater effectiveness and better use of fuel.”
Controls have also increased, he says, which have made it possible to discover “undue charges, route diversions, route openings and closings outside the established hours, non-compliance with trips and overstay in the taxi stands.” Since September, “199 violations have been detected,” which have led to 66 fines of between 1,250 and 3,750 pesos each, in addition to “10 closures of definitive leases and four temporary lease closures, 34 warning acts, 79 private warnings, three public warnings and three stimulation discounts.”
Nothing new under the sun, otherwise. The lack of diesel has only aggravated a service that was implemented with great success five years ago but that has been in frank decline for months. So much so that the gazelles are being replaced by private vehicles, increasingly present in the streets of Havana.
Translated by Regina Anavy
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How far will the insane new absolutist experiment of the Ortega-Murillo couple go?
The Ortega-Murillo couple have also gone after social leaders who have dared to criticize them. / EFE
14ymedio, Federico Hernández Aguilar, San Salvador, 7 December 2024 — Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo, as is often the case with entrenched despots, have finally lost one of the most basic political senses: that of proportion. The mere possibility of seeing themselves out of government is a dark cloud that has been threatening them since April 2018, when citizen discontent was expressed in the streets and squares of the main cities of Nicaragua like never before, demanding freedom. From that moment on, through the most crude repression, this marriage of unpresentables has done everything possible to accumulate power.
After removing political figures who could overshadow them, the Ortega-Murillos have also gone after social leaders who have dared to criticize them. Union spokespeople, Catholic bishops, representatives of non-official organizations, members of civic alliances and anyone who could be labeled as an “opponent” or “conspirator” have ended up behind bars or in exile. Even those businesspeople who, in order to look after their businesses, maintain their status or simply to avoid problems, were once active or passive accomplices of the regime, today pay a high price for the debt of bravery and courage they acquired — in exchange for crumbs — with their bleeding homeland.
Of course, when all the limits have been crossed, the political tragedy of a country irremediably borders on comedy. And the Ortega-Murillo couple is staging, from Nicaragua, the great Hispanic-American tragicomedy of our time. There is no capacity for astonishment that this criminal duo has not challenged. The mere fact that they are in power as a couple, in the official capacity of husband and wife — whether or not they share the marital bed — is in itself a challenge to any global historical revisionism of tyrannies. The Ortega-Murillo thing is already ridiculous, bizarre, grotesque. continue reading
The constitutional reforms approved by Parliament have completely restructured the country’s political system.
The constitutional reforms approved a few days ago by the parliament controlled by the ruling party have completely restructured the country’s political system. Under the rhetorical name of the Law for the Protection of Nicaraguans from Sanctions and External Aggression, the Sandinistas, back in power since 2007, have impacted a hundred articles of the current Constitution, including the indefinite reelection of the president, the creation of the gaseous positions of “co-president” and “co-presidentess” for Daniel and his wife, and the tacit elimination of the separation of powers. In a display of totalitarian paroxysm, Ortega-Murillo have gone so far as to elevate the red and black flag of the ruling party to the rank of “patriotic symbol.”
Of course, in the company of Venezuelan Chavismo-Madurismo, the discredit of the Nicaraguan dictatorship could not be deeper. It burned its ships long ago with the vast majority of the population; now it confirms that its paranoia is uncontrollable, extravagant and cartoonish. Priests “armed” with rosaries, besieged in their homes by police with rifles and pistols, constitute the most illustrative image of the degradation into which Daniel Ortega, once the leader of a triumphant revolution against the Somoza dynasty, has fallen.
The current version of Sandinismo, of course, quickly learned to generate its own forms of sustainability. Through a form of state corporatism, without business associations capable of defending the institutions and with a clumsy and fragmented political opposition, the dictatorship only had to silence the critical press to finish weaving its network of control. Added to the above, the Venezuelan oil rush remained at its peak for long enough to consolidate a framework of relations that journalist Carlos Fernando Chamorro, now an inspector of the regime, called in his day “the largest acts of corruption in Central America” (now surpassed by other neighbors).
How far will this crazy, new-fangled absolutist experiment go? No one can predict, although it is clear that it will end badly. Nicaraguan citizens are frightened, the opposition has gone into exile, and Western leaders are divided on the appropriate actions to take. Will someone whisper to the international community that the option of a multinational intervention alliance is urgent? Or will tyrants like Ortega and Maduro be allowed to continue destroying the lives of millions of people with impunity? We will see what happens in 2025.
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In the Kilo 12 neighborhood, this Saturday sales points for food, fruit and other basic products were improvised. / 14ymedio
14ymedio, Mercedes García, Sancti Spíritus, 30 November 2024 — Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel’s trips to Sancti Spíritus have their preamble and their coda. Before the Cuban leader arrives, it is easy to detect that the presidential motorcade is approaching: the collection of garbage, the hurried painting of the facades and the operation around the Communist Party’s guest house where he is staying give him away. But also, when he leaves, he leaves a trail, some touch-ups to convey the message that his presence has been worthwhile. This week the hustle and bustle has culminated in a food fair.
In the Kilo 12 neighborhood, this Saturday, sales points for food, fruit and other basic products were improvised. A table with sweet cookies here, a stand with pumpkins and some stunted yuccas there, next to trucks that, without even unloading the merchandise, hurried customers to buy 2.5 kilogram packages of frozen chicken at 1,580 pesos each. A starving horse pulled a cart that carried plantains and some tiny malangas. “There is almost nothing,” grumbled an old woman who warned: “those sweet potatoes have so much dirt stuck to them that you don’t even know what they are.”
At around noon, the number of people dropped because word spread in nearby neighborhoods that “the fair is bad.” / 14ymedio
A long line suggested some cheap merchandise, but the reality was white sugar at 380 pesos, a slightly lower price than the 400 that the product cost this week in the city’s MSMEs. In the long line, a woman detailed the difficulties she encountered when, on Friday, she wanted to approach Díaz-Canel to tell him about the housing problems she suffers in a home with part of the roof collapsed and her two elderly parents bedridden. When the woman tried to get to one of the points visited by the party leader, a barrier of State Security agents stopped her. “They told me that there was already a list of people who could speak with him and that I was not included.”
There was no shortage of fights and pushing at the fair. A girl of about ten years old walked near those waiting to buy and asked, in a barely audible voice, for 50 pesos to “eat something.” Around noon, an elderly man continue reading
collapsed and suffered an epileptic attack. “The poor man hasn’t been able to take his pills for weeks because there aren’t any in the pharmacy,” explained a young woman who was with him. None of the stalls were accepting electronic payments, so customers had to pay out huge wads of bills to take the products home.
At about noon, the number of visitors had decreased because word had spread in the nearby neighborhoods that “the fair is bad.” The merchants began to collect the boxes and bags with everything they could not sell. The show was over. The visitor for whom the fair was staged was already hundreds of kilometers away.
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The Government publishes a new decree that increases the restrictions initiated last August
A small business selling candles and cookies out of the back of a truck in the Havana neighborhood of Luyanó. / 14ymedio
14ymedio, Havana, 5 December 2024 — The Cuban government took another step on Thursday in the restrictions on business freedom initiated with the mega package of measures issued last August . A resolution published in the Official Gazette establishes what is called “the regulation of wholesale and retail marketing by non-state economic actors,” which translates into the obligation for micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) to sell wholesale with the mediation of the State, and the explicit prohibition of doing so by self-employed workers.
These measures are triggering a lot of anger within the private sector. Speaking to 14ymedio, on condition of anonymity, the accountant of a small business that sells some imported foods wholesale expressed his indignation. “Since the new measures were announced in August, we have been preparing ourselves. The honeymoon with MSMEs is over, now the State is showing its true abusive face with private companies. While they are closing us off, they are allowing more and more foreign companies, several of them Spanish, to sell wholesale.”
The only non-state actors that will be able to engage in wholesale trade – that is, as an intermediary between the producer and the consumer, selling to retail entities and also to wholesalers – are “those who have production approved as their main activity.” That is, as long as it is “only their productions” and “after obtaining a commercial license, where this activity is specified.” They will not be able, like other private entities, to market other “national or imported” products. continue reading
MSMEs and self-employed workers are allowed to continue selling at retail level “as long as it is approved in their corporate purpose”
MSMEs and self-employed workers are allowed to continue selling at retail level “as long as it is approved in their corporate purpose or project, and they have the commercial license to do so.”
Unlike the usual practice with the legal texts in the Official Gazette, this rule comes into force from the moment it is published, that is, today, which explains the speed with which – also contrary to custom – it has been reported in the official press which, on other occasions, usually takes days to do so.
The “regulation,” it is detailed “will be carried out gradually.” MSMEs and non-agricultural cooperatives (CNA) whose main activity is wholesale marketing will have a period of 90 working days to confirm that “they will continue to carry out wholesale activity with the participation of state entities.” To do so, they must update their corporate purpose and commercial license, a process that the authorities assure “will be done expeditiously.”
Those who do not ratify the resolution will have a maximum of 120 working days to “liquidate their inventories” that were intended for the wholesale trade. They may, according to the resolution, “continue retail sales, if they have defined this in their corporate purpose and have a commercial license.”
Those MSMEs that have wholesale trade as a secondary activity will have up to 120 working days to “settle their merchandise for wholesale purposes.” As previously, they will be allowed to continue selling at retail if it is in their corporate purpose and they have a license. If they want to dedicate themselves to wholesale, they will have to modify their corporate purpose, becoming subordinate to the State (“defining wholesale trade with the participation of state entities as their main activity, according to the established procedures,” the law indicates).
Finally, self-employed workers who are currently engaged in wholesale trade have a maximum of 120 working days to liquidate their wholesale goods, although they can continue to sell them at retail.
The commercial licenses of MSMEs and CNAs that have wholesale as a secondary activity will be revoked, according to the resolution, starting this Thursday. In addition, the Central Commercial Registry “ex officio cancels the registration of the wholesale trade activity of national or imported goods for self-employed workers.”
“The State is positioned as another intermediary instead of competing, raising the price and delaying the process”
Without the “state wholesalers,” wholesale will not be available to private companies. In its educational article, Cubadebate argues that this brings “benefits,” including allowing “non-state economic actors to use the infrastructure, transportation and commercial experience” of state entities, and contributing to the “reduction of transportation and storage costs, impacting the retail prices of products destined for the population.”
However, some commentators have been quick to contradict oficialdom. “Excuse me, but the above is not true,” says an on-line commenter who identifies himself as Preocupado Colorado. “The State positions itself as another intermediary instead of competing, raising the price and delaying the process. It uses the currency of private parties (to whom it does not sell foreign currency) instead of its own.”
And he goes on to list a string of obstacles placed in the way of Cuban entrepreneurs by the government, such as preventing “the possibility of importing directly, in order to introduce state importers and not to have to compete in imports,” and capping private companies “on the prices of key foods, chicken, oil, etc. to discourage their sale while state stores sell them for double the price.”
“In August, they had already reduced the possibility of selling between non-state legal entities, and now they are eliminating it,” continues Preocupado Colorado. “In this way, they are eliminating private competition in large-scale trade, maintaining the monopoly and the same inefficient structures that have led us to the need to be open to non-state actors.” At the same time that they “encourage foreign, Cuban-American investment,” they do not give “the same tax breaks to Cubans from Cuba who would like to invest,” laments the same citizen. “They charge them in foreign currency, they do not sell them foreign currency and they pursue them to find out where they got it from. They take away the CUC [Cuban peso] for the MLC [freely convertible currency], now they are taking things from MLC for the USD.”
What is the next step? he asks. “Eliminate any MSME that competes with a state entity in any way? Is this how the ’socialist’ state company will be efficient, by removing potential competition?” And he concludes bitterly: “I don’t think so. They are defrauding the trust of all those who invested their savings and life projects in this country. Once again.”
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Santa’s red costume reigns in the private shops, but the regime’s olive green reigns in places under state management
The figure of an elf, with beard and pointed hat, stood out against the poor lighting in the shop.
14ymedio, Natalia López Moya, Havana, 7 December 2024 – The Christmas decorations have begun timidly to appear in Havana. The private sector, with its cafeterias, its bars and its shops, is at the forefront of the decorations, with lights and garlands that set officialdom’s teeth on edge. This December, however, there haven’t yet been any published diatribes from officials or party ideologues criticising all the little Christmas trees and Santas’ sleighs. Perhaps it’s because at this particular year’s end the principal enemy of any festivities is the crisis, and especially the power cuts, that leave the nativity scenes in semi-darkness.
Inside an independent outlet in the National Bus Terminal in Rancho Boyeros Avenue on Thursday night, the figure of an elf with beard and pointed hat stood out against the poor lighting in the shop. Having a certain visual mixture of garden gnome and Santa Claus, the inflatable doll reigned over the dimly lit display counters with their packets of sweet biscuits (cookies) and crisps (chips), all of them imported.
“Better not to even look at the prices, otherwise you’ll be shocked”, advised a young girl who’d arrived at the station carrying only a small backpack. “I’m going to need more than a wizard in a hood to see if I can manage to get on a bus”, she said. In front of her, on a counter full of goodies, piles of polystyrene snow surrounded a number of decorations in the form of Christmas presents. continue reading
Two men in the armed forces uniform of the Prevention Troops patrolled with their dogs
A string of tiny blinking lights attempted to bring some kind of festive atmosphere to the scene, but most people just hurried by and didn’t even glance at the Christmas display. Close by the business, two men in the armed forces uniform of the Prevention Troops, known as the Red Berets, patrolled the terminal with their dogs.
Santa’s red in the private shops, and the regime’s olive green in the places under state management. A reindeer transporting presents on one side, and on the other side a German shepherd dog seeking out drugs, cheese, meat or seafood in passengers’ luggage, and, all about them, the semi-darkness of a station which had as little illumination as the buses that departed from it had.
Translated by Ricardo Recluso
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“Fear on the buses, in lonely streets, empty parks at night, windows and doors secured before dark,” lists the official magazine ‘Bohemia’
In a few years, argues the magazine Bohemia, the rise in crime in Cuba has been directly proportional to the deterioration of life / 14ymedio
14ymedio, Havana, 30 November 2024 — A short time ago, the digital magazine Bohemia presented a meticulous report about the rise of violence in Cuba. Interspersed between minor works, the text provides desolate figures – and many testimonies – from a survey whose scope was not revealed. Some 92.3% of those interviewed consider that crime has increased a lot, and 48.9% have been a direct victim in the last six months or know a victim. One-third do not trust the authorities to report the crime, and of those who did, 73.4% “did not see a solution to their complaint.”
In addition, after “various interviews conducted, and sociological, criminal and anthropological studies consulted,” they conclude that almost half of Cubans can list 10 or more violent crimes that occurred in the last semester. Eighty-three percent have completely changed their routines and have developed strategies to stay safe.
In a few years, argues Bohemia, the rise in crime in Cuba has been directly proportional to the deterioration of life, the “loss of values,” the increasingly massive “vulnerabilities” and the debacle of the “solution mechanisms” of conflicts by the Police. The magazine resorts to euphemisms and asks to consult the official data; it has no choice but to admit that the authorities usually have their lips sealed in this regard.
The magazine resorts to euphemisms and asks to consult the official data; it has no choice but to admit that the authorities usually have their lips sealed
“However,” they ironize, “comparative statistical sites such as Infobae and Numbeo report that Cuba is among the countries with the lowest crime rates in America.”
Although banditry and crimes of gender violence in rural areas are undeniable, it is in municipal capitals and large towns where the increase in crime is perceived with particular intensity. “There is fear on the buses, in lonely dark streets and empty parks, and windows and doors are secured before dark,” says Bohemia.
In Guantánamo, the magazine reports, the official announcer David Alexis González, who was sleeping, was stabbed to death in continue reading
his own house by robbers. The authorities of the Ministry of the Interior took three months to provide an official version, and only after they had captured the alleged murderers.
Providing information, Bohemia regrets, is “a rare practice” in the Police and is almost always done late, despite the fact that the “unofficial media and Facebook profiles” had already offered details of the case.
The “alternative media” are the evidence, the magazine reasons, that there is “a need for information that is still unsatisfied, due to the lack of official spaces that clarify and provide figures on this type of event. That insufficiency does not disappear; it is redirected to various alternative channels of communication.”
The “alternative media” are the evidence, the magazine reasons, that there is “a still-unsatisfied need for information”
Bohemia distinguishes a spectrum of independent media from those that have “sensationalist traits” and “lack rigor and professionalism” to those that, they recognize, are serious, but “intend to sell Cuba as an unsafe country.” “But the truth is that yes, on the networks there are also complaints of real events. Some of them increase popular interest, causing a response, generally late, from the state media.”
“Yesterday they stole a propane tank from a doctor who lives from hand to mouth, and last week they tried to enter a garage near the nursing home. A neighbor woke up, turned on the light, and that’s why they left. I bolt my door with a Yale lock, latch the windows and put sticks and stones behind the door. If someone breaks in, at least it will make noise and wake me up.” This is how a woman of 50 years old interviewed by Bohemia expressed herself, “almost paranoid,” during a nocturnal conversation with her daughter.
Cuban houses are “a Sing Sing prison,” the woman joked, with a nervous laugh. Her fear is not based on what she reads on social networks, the magazine narrows down, but on her own experiences and on what she reads in the newspapers, “official or not.”
Another statement, from Elizabeth Bello – a girl from Havana – tells the story of the theft of her cell phone. When she took out her phone on Belascoaín Street at three in the afternoon, “two teenagers punched her in the neck, which made her fall to the ground, and they wrenched her cell phone away from her.” Bello attributed the robbery to the fact that she had been mistaken “for a foreigner.” “I immediately made the complaint. I was in the Police Unit until two in the morning, almost 12 hours!”
Daily life in Cuba is rapidly deteriorating, and the Criminal Law, Bohemia regrets, “is not an instrument of change”
Daily life in Cuba is rapidly deteriorating, and the Criminal Law, Bohemia regrets, “is not an instrument of change.” Crime cannot be eradicated without an improvement in living conditions. “Legal sector managers link the significant increase in crime in our nation to the scarcity of resources, goods and food and high inflation.” The response of the Prosecutor’s Office, they point out, has been to judge “property crime with greater rigor.”
On the other hand, there are more and more ex-convicts who commit crimes again because “it is difficult for them to find work and even be received by their families.” The stigmatization and the fact that they return to the same environment of poverty from which they came “are stimuli to recidivism.”
The buses and their stops – especially in the capital – are an environment of frequent crimes. Leonardo Rodríguez, waiting to board a P6 to Mantilla, saw two young people brandishing knives at each other, each belonging to different gangs – with members of both sexes – who looked at them from afar, armed with knives and machetes. The stop was in the middle of the “battlefield” that, with stones, was then formed. There were women and children. “That’s normal here; it happens almost every day,” Rodríguez said.
In this type of neighborhood, life is characterized by “the loss of values and the educational crisis, laziness and the delegitimization of work as a source of income, machismo and violence,” lists Bohemia.
Gender violence is separate issue, and Bohemia is scandalized that the most complete data offered by the Government are from a date as far away as 2016. Femicides are the “most followed” cases due to their importance. For researchers, the absence of official information leaves a “bad taste” since they cannot determine if there is really an increase in cases or “if in reality there was always a similar number of cases that were not classified as such.”
Women who suffer sexist violence clash with the “insensitivity of officials”
Women who suffer sexist violence clash with the “insensitivity of officials,” the magazine insists. “Questioning the victims when making the complaint, dismissal of danger or the seriousness that the situation implies, delays in taking statements in the PNR [National Revolutionary Police] Units or in the collection of evidence at the scene, exposure of the victims to the reconstruction of the story too many times”: everything influences the “loss of confidence” in the Police that is currently confirmed.
In this sense, they emphasize “a detail”: “The police forces are also affected by the prevailing socioeconomic panorama, which causes a decrease in police personnel in charge of attending, processing and solving crimes. In the end, neither victims nor perpetrators nor executors escape the context.”
Translated by Regina Anavy
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Inspectors confiscate the merchandise or fine sellers who do not put price labels on their products
Many individuals have stopped selling for fear of fines / 14ymedio
14ymedio, Mercedes García, Sancti Spíritus, 5 December 2024 — With December came a new wave of persecutions of self-employed sellers throughout Cuba. The so-called “national exercise against crime and illegalities,” which the official press defends as “necessary” and “timely,” has not only put in check the self-employed, who have had to close their shops or pay fines, but also the families of the Island, who at the end of the year have run out of places to buy food.
“This week I went out to buy some items to repair my burner and some oil-based paint, but I had to go around the city a lot because all the private shops for these items were closed,” Roberto, a resident of Sancti Spíritus, tells 14ymedio. “The few vendors I was able to talk to told me that there’s a state offensive going on against the private sector. Apparently, there are many inspectors visiting the private businesses one by one.”
According to Roberto, the witch hunt has already fined several owners, many of them for “nonsense.” “They gave a saleswoman a 5,000-peso fine because the wind had blown off a price tag, and it was on the ground. Another, whose product did not show the price anywhere, was fined 80,000 pesos,” he says.
After giving up buying the tools he needed, Roberto decided to go to the place where he usually buys paint
After giving up buying the tools he needed, Roberto decided to go to the place where he usually buys oil-based paint. “I arrived, and the saleswoman, who knows me, opened her eyes wide and pointed to three inspectors who were in the store. One was looking at the list to see if the prices were right and two others were verifying that the QR codes to pay were functional. She made signs that she had paint but couldn’t sell it,” he explains. continue reading
He wasn’t doing well in the search for food either. “I went to the Kilo 12 market and the stalls were also closed. Some people there told me that a cart had stopped with bags of coal at 1,100 pesos, and the authorities had confiscated all the merchandise,” says Roberto, who adds: “All the other stalls closed out of fear.”
Stories like these continue to circulate on the streets of the city, Roberto admits. “They also told me that a man who was selling a pot of chili for 70 pesos was fined 7,000 pesos because it is not the agreed price for that product. There are even some inspectors from Havana who have been brought in for this control exercise.”
Frustrated with the impossibility of finding what he was looking for, Roberto decided to try his luck for the last time before returning home empty-handed. “I finally found some cucumbers in a place that, at first glance, seemed to be closed. All the people were scattered throughout the street and when someone arrived he would discreetly ask who was the last in line. They kept going in one by one,” he said.
Roberto recognizes that prices are high, but doubts that a “wave of fines left and right” is the solution
Roberto recognizes that food prices are high, but doubts that a “wave of fines left and right” is the solution. On the contrary, he reflects, the authorities are pushing sellers into smuggling when they also depend on the prices demanded by their suppliers. “As a result, almost everyone has closed because they are afraid of being fined. They say that until the wave of inspectors passes, they will not reopen.”
The case of Sancti Spíritus has been repeated throughout the country since the control began last Monday. According to images released on social networks, in a market in Santiago de Cuba, inspectors confiscated the products of some sellers, which provoked complaints from other self-employed and customers. “They are struggling and have small children,” someone is heard screaming in the recording while some police officers and others in civilian clothes grapple with the sellers who try to prevent them from confiscating a wheelbarrow.
The government of Havana has also left on its social networks the traces of the inspection of forklift drivers and small vendors. “In the tour of the Palatine Council, the marketing of agricultural products with no visible price is detected,” warns the publication, which announces a fine of 5,000 pesos for the infraction and another 2,000 for “not presenting commercial authorization.”
In November, 3,402 inspections were carried out that resulted in 2,783 fines totalling more than 8 million pesos
In Camagüey, an article published this Thursday by the official press says that this December the control is carried out with greater emphasis because “confronting abusive prices” is a State priority. According to the data published by Adelante, in November 3,402 inspections were carried out that resulted in 2,783 fines totalling more than 8 million pesos. “These coordinated actions were implemented last July with an amount that exceeds 39 million, including November,” the newspaper concludes.
Despite the obvious discontent of the self-employed and the customers, who have suddenly seen the shops where they usually buy closed, the Government has defended the measure, which will last until Saturday, December 7. “It is a comprehensive exercise, with participation and popular control, which strengthens the unity of our people and is oriented above all to confront manifestations of corruption,” Miguel Díaz-Canel said last Monday, when he gave the starting point to the army of inspectors.
However, the president acknowledged that the problems identified by the “exercise” cannot be “confronted in one day, in two, in a week, in a certain time,” something evident if we take into account that the Regime has launched similar offensives in past months – the last of them this summer – without result
This December, Cubans will once again desist from the holidays, the roasted piglet and the traditional family reunion at the end of the year. Instead, they will have the concern of looking for what to eat if, due to state “control,” “the platforms are stripped.”
Translated by Regina Anavy
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Yelenys Tornet Menéndez and Juana Viñals Suárez were first proposed by the president
Yelenys Tornet Menéndez and Juana Viñals Suárez are the new governor and vice-governor of Las Tunas. / Periodico 26
EFE (via 14ymedio), Havana, 9 December 2024 — Two women were elected this Sunday to occupy the positions of governor and vice-governor of the province of Las Tunas by the delegates to the Municipal Assemblies of People’s Power, following the resignation and suspension of those who previously held those responsibilities.
Yelenys Tornet Menéndez and Juana Viñals Suárez, first proposed by the country’s president, Miguel Díaz-Canel, were elected as governor and vice governor, respectively, as a result of the vote of the 637 delegates (98.9% of those summoned), reported the state-run Cuban News Agency (ACN).
According to the National Electoral Council (CEN), 99.53% of the votes were cast, there were no spoiled ballots and three blank ballots (1.10%). The new governor and vice-governor of the eastern province are scheduled to take office within 21 days of their election. continue reading
According to the National Electoral Council (CEN), a 99.53% of the votes were cast, there were no spoiled ballots and three blank ballots were registered.
The women replace Jaime Chiang Vega, who resigned from his post as governor for “errors” who resigned from his post as governor for “errors” last October, and Vice Governor Ernesto Cruz Reyes, who was suspended from his post for “incurring violations in the exercise of his responsibilities,” according to official media reports at the time.
In the case of Cruz Reyes, his removal from office was endorsed today by the delegates with 620 votes in favor and 16 against.
A year ago, all the governors were elected for five-year terms, but for various reasons several provinces have had to look for replacements early.
The report notes that the proposals for candidates to fill these positions were submitted by the president to the National Electoral Council, as provided for in the Constitution of the Republic and the Electoral Law.
Candidates must be born in Cuba, have no other citizenship, be at least 30 years old, reside in the province for which they were nominated and be in full enjoyment of civil and political rights. To be elected, candidates must obtain more than 50% of the valid votes cast.
A year ago, all the governors were elected for five-year terms, but for various reasons several provinces have had to look for replacements early.
According to the Constitution approved in 2019, each province is governed by a Provincial Government of People’s Power, made up of a governor and a provincial council.
Díaz-Canel has reiterated in recent months the Government’s “zero tolerance” for economic crimes and corruption, and Prime Minister Manuel Marrero, quoted in official media, has also called for “a stronger hand” in the face of “laxity, lack of demand and control” in the state sector.
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14ymedio, Havana, 11 December 2024 — The German Foreign Ministry has issued a security warning for those planning to visit Cuba. In a notice in force since December 5, it informs travelers of the problems with electricity generation that, in the last two months, have caused at least three total power outages on the island.
