Cuba: after five years in office, President Díaz-Canel has ordered the resignation of the Minister of Economy

With a sudden decision, adopted as part of a government restructuring involving three ministries and the heads of the Central Bank, Cuban President Miguel Mario Díaz-Canel, ordered the replacement of the powerful Minister of Economy with the rank of deputy prime minister, Alejandro Gil by Joaquín Alonso Vázquez, head of the Central Bank of Cuba.

All the Cuban media gave ample space to the restructuring through an official statement from the Presidency, even if no clarifications were provided on the reasons that pushed the head of state to this decision.

But analysts agree that the former Minister of Economy was considered the main person responsible for the failure to implement on schedule, a few days ago, a package of austerity measures, including a significant and abrupt increase in the price of fuel, necessary according to the government to deal with the serious situation of the Cuban economic crisis which generated a 2% recession in 2023.

In 2018, Gil Fernández, a native of Villa Clara like Díaz-Canel, was promoted to Minister of Economy, the same year that the current president assumed the presidency of the country.

If Díaz-Canel were to replace the octogenarian Raúl Castro, Gil Fernández has filled the position previously occupied by Ricardo Cabrisas, then 82 years old. Both, under 60, were part not only of a transfer of power but also of a generational and image change. For the first time, the initiators of the 1959 Revolution did not occupy the highest positions in the country.

The official press release indicates, however, that the presidency of the Central Bank was assumed by Juana Lilia Delgado Portal, while the ministers of Science, Technology and Environment and the Food Industry, Elba Rosa Pérez Montoya and Manuel Santiago Sobrino Martínez, respectively, were replaced . by Eduardo Martínez Díaz and Alberto López Díaz.

Source: ANSA