Is Cuba the only Country with Problems?

Elio Delgado Legon

HAVANA TIMES — Critics of the Cuban Revolution, of its political system and government keep on mentioning “Cuba’s problems” in articles and comments that they publish on different platforms, which, in the abstract, would lead readers to believe that Cuba is a country full of problems and they believe that these would be solved if there was a change in Cuba’s political, economic and social system, which by the way the Cuban people have chosen and materialized in their Constitution.

Yes, Cuba is suffering economic hardship, nobody denies that, and this is aggravated by an economic, trade and financial blockade that the US has impoIs he rest of underdeveloped nations?

Even if we were to compare Cuba with Latin American countries that have achieved a certain level of progress such as Brazil, Argentina and Chile (just to name the largest), Cuba has had a lot less problems than they have, these being countries where we watch news of large street protests making demands because of financial cuts and anti-worker laws, which leave thousands of workers living in extreme poverty and even destitution; because of an increase in public service fees such as gas, water and electricity, which reduce the incomes of those who haven’t lost their jobs.

And I’m not even going to mention the other problems they have such as violence, organized crime, drug trafficking, the paramilitary and murders of political and social leaders (evils which were wiped out in Cuba) because my readers are already full aware of them.

I am giving these examples as a comparison because in nearly 60 years of the revolutionary government, there has never been a protest making demands, in spite of the US blockade that was imposed with this goal in mind: to make the Cuban people rebel and take to the streets to ask for a change of government.

Not even in our hardest times, when we were going through the so-called Special Period crisis (which I have mentioned in previous posts) did the Cuban people complain to the government about the shortages and hardships we experienced. On the contrary, Cubans closed ranks with their Revolution instead and held out.

Today, when we have just had our general elections, which take place every 5 years, we can describe the result as the people’s overall support for the revolutionary and socialist government and their absolute confidence in their leadership. We only have to take a look at the results of this process:

A total of 85.65% of voters exercised their right to vote. What other country sees so many of its citizens go to vote in elections? Out of the total number of voters, 94.42% of the ballots were valid, which indicate overwhelming support for the political system and if this wasn’t enough, 80.44% of voters voted for all the candidates, as another sign of their confidence in the system and its leadership.

If Cuba has problems, it isn’t the country with the most problems. You just have to take a look around us. The whole world has problems as a result of the crisis that capitalism and the concentration of wealth in 1% of citizens’ pockets has caused, while 99% live in different states of poverty, who range from exploited workers to those whose salaries are less and less every day to meet the huge expenses they need to cover in order to live, to people who have even lost their homes and have to live on the street in extreme poverty. These are real problems.