Cuba: Reform or Blackout

A Choice Before the Lights Go Out

By Khanh Vu Duc*

HAVANA TIMES – From Asia—where post-revolutionary societies have learned, often painfully, that postponement can be as destabilizing as rupture—I watch Cuba with empathy and urgency. I write as a friend of the Cuban people, and of a future Cuba that is free, democratic, and prosperous. Friendship, however, demands honesty.

Cuba is approaching a decisive moment—not because of an imminent political milestone, but because that milestone has been postponed indefinitely. The decision to delay the Communist Party’s IX Congress beyond its expected April 2026 timeframe is not procedural. It is a signal. In highly centralized systems, indefinite postponement usually reflects elite uncertainty, unresolved internal tensions, and fear of accountability amid crisis.

This delay coincides with a deepening structural emergency. With roughly 40 percent of Cuba’s energy supply—once dependent on Venezuela—now disrupted, rolling blackouts are no longer episodic; they are structural. Economic exhaustion, demographic decline driven by sustained emigration, and the erosion of external support are converging into a single reality: continuity without meaningful adjustment is no longer the least costly option.

Public sentiment mirrors this shift. Surveys reported by independent Cuban outlets suggest that a clear majority of younger Cubans would accept political pluralism if it delivered economic stability and opportunity. This is not a call for chaos, but a pragmatic demand for normalcy. The postponement of the Party Congress therefore does not buy time—it exposes risk. The choice facing Cuba’s elite in 2026 is stark: reform from a position of control, or govern a permanent emergency later, at far higher cost.

Vietnam and Venezuela: Why Action Matters More Than Pressure

Asian history cautions against simple explanations. Vietnam’s Đổi mới reforms of 1986 are often cited as proof that markets alone can save a system. The reality was harsher. Vietnam reformed because it was cornered: abandoned by the Soviet Union, locked in hostility with China, isolated by sanctions, and suffering chronic shortages. Reform was a strategy for survival, not a democratic bargain.

Only after Hanoi recalibrated internally did the United States and its allies begin to engage, increasingly viewing Vietnam as a strategic counterweight to a rising China. Economic success followed; political liberalization did not. Markets stabilized the ruling structure rather than renegotiated the social contract, while Western actors prioritized geopolitical stability over democratic conditionality.

Venezuela offers a different, but equally instructive lesson. The collapse of Nicolas Maduro’s rule was not the automatic outcome of sanctions. It followed years of internal fragmentation, elite defections, and coordinated pressure amplified by effective lobbying in Washington. External pressure mattered—but only because domestic cohesion had already broken. When internal cohesion dissolved, no foreign patron intervened to save the regime.

The lesson is consistent: outcomes are decided inside political systems, not imposed from outside. Russia and China today lack both the capacity and the incentive to underwrite Cuba’s stagnation indefinitely. The United States cannot rescue Cuba—but it can shape incentives. Ultimately, however, the decisive actors are Cuban.

A Call to Cuba’s Technocrats: Reform as Stewardship

Cuba differs from Vietnam in ways that matter. Its economy is smaller, its strategic indispensability lower—but its diaspora’s influence in the United States is far stronger. Its population is compact, and the cost of transition is therefore lower. These conditions create a rare opening for negotiated evolution rather than collapse.

As a principled pragmatist, I favor the least costly path that remains faithful to universal values: freedom, democracy, human rights, and the rule of law. That path is neither isolation nor rupture. It is reform anchored in domestic initiative and matched by credible external engagement—sanctions relief for verifiable steps, legal space for civic life, and guarantees that reduce the fear of sudden retribution.

Here is my direct appeal to Cuba’s technocrats and administrators, from ministries to provinces: reform today is not betrayal—it is stewardship. As with Vietnam’s moment of reckoning, pragmatic change can protect what is worth preserving from the revolutionary legacy: sovereignty, social dignity, and national cohesion. Clinging to a dead ideology does not honor history; adapting to reality does.

Dialogue with the United States—under any administration—should be treated as risk management, not capitulation. At the same time, nothing prevents Havana from acting first: expanding space for enterprise, decriminalizing dissent, inviting neutral observers, and preparing a peaceful transition that preserves national dignity. These steps are not signs of weakness; they are markers of confidence.

A free, democratic, and prosperous Cuba will not emerge through rescue or revenge. It will emerge through choice. The next Communist Party Congress can offer that choice. Reform—or blackout.

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*Khanh Vu Duc is a professor at the University of Ottawa, Canada.

Read more from Cuba here on Havana Times.