Cuba’s leadership faces increased strain from U.S. policy and mounting protests on the island.
Selena Lambert Ortega, a 24-year-old from Santiago de Cuba, invited her fellow citizens to choose who they believed should be Cuba’s next president, in a Facebook poll posted on Jan. 12. Within hours, the post went viral.
Respondents overwhelmingly favored U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, the son of Cuban American immigrants.
A few hours later, State Security agents in Santiago de Cuba, the island’s second-largest city, summoned Lambert Ortega and ordered her to delete the poll.
Before the post was removed, Rubio had received around 35,000 votes, while the current president, Miguel Diaz-Canel, received only 475.
What began as a simple post on social media turned into a revealing snapshot of current public sentiment, according to Ninoska Perez Castellon, a radio host and a prominent member of the Cuban exile community in Miami.
“The poll was taken off Facebook, but it shows you what the mentality is inside Cuba,” she told The Epoch Times.
When Perez Castellon visited the State Department recently, she showed Rubio the Facebook poll.
The secretary of state laughed and joked that he did not want any extra work, Perez Castellon said.
Rubio is leading negotiations with the Cuban regime and has clearly stated the U.S. position. Cuba has to change its political system “dramatically,” he told reporters on March 17, noting that the current leaders are incapable of fixing the failing economy.
“They have to get new people in charge,” Rubio said.
For decades, Havana managed to withstand the U.S. embargo on Cuba with help from the Soviet Union, which provided subsidies until its collapse in 1991.
Later, Venezuela supported the Caribbean island by supplying oil at reduced prices. This has played a critical role in Cuba’s economy for the past two decades.
In the early 2000s, Venezuelan leader Hugo Chávez granted Havana access to his country’s rich oil reserves through a barter agreement that helped the island recover from its economic crisis.
Cuba received billions of dollars in crude oil and, in exchange, provided Venezuela with medical, technological, military, and intelligence support.
Following the U.S. military operation and capture of Nicolás Maduro in early January, oil shipments from Caracas were suspended.
Cuba now faces one of its most severe economic crises in decades.
Large protests erupted on the island amid frequent blackouts, severe food shortages, and limited access to medicine.
In Cuba, people are less afraid to protest, and many see that the embargo is not the main reason for their problems, Perez Castellon said.
“This is a country that is in ruins. You’ve seen the images of the trash piling up on the streets. You’ve seen people without electricity for long periods. Their food spoils,” she said.
“They have no water. They can’t wash their clothes or send the kids to school. So it is a whole drama of what people are living through there.”
“The Cubans are suffering because of the regime that they have had there for decades. There is no doubt about it,” said Tomas Pojar, a senior fellow at Hudson Institute’s Center on Europe and Eurasia and former national security adviser to the Czech government.
“The regime is trying to place all the blame on others, but the fact is that it is a dysfunctional, oppressive regime, as it has always been since the beginning.”
According to Human Rights Watch (HRW), Cubans are fleeing the country in large numbers.
The island lost 10 percent of its population in recent years, according to government data, but independent studies show the actual number could be much higher, HRW states in a report.
By Emel Akan
