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Pedro Monreal defends democratic rule of law as a condition for transforming Cuba
In an article posted on his X account and on Substack, the economist rejects the idea that the failures of Latin American democracies are grounds for ruling out a democratic alternative in Cuba, according to CiberCuba and Diario de Cuba.
Cuban economist Pedro Monreal published an article on Sunday titled 'The democratic rule of law in Cuba and the pessimism of comparison with the imperfect,' in which he sets aside his usual technical register to defend the democratic rule of law explicitly, according to CiberCuba. The text appeared on his X account and on his Substack.
'Once again I hear the criticism of those of us who propose economic transformations with a democratic rule of law in Cuba as our horizon, and once again the criticism is that there is no point promoting it because democratic governments in Latin America fail. That is an error of analysis and of priorities,' Monreal writes in the passage quoted by CiberCuba.
Monreal distinguishes Latin America's problems, corruption, populism and inequality, from Cuba's: 'the constitutional monopoly of a single party, the total absence of electoral competition and the sustained, systematic repression of peaceful political dissent for more than six decades.' Invoking the former to dodge the debate on the latter amounts, in his words, to 'wallowing in the pessimism of comparison with the imperfect.'
The economist also challenges the notion of a 'socialist rule-of-law state' enshrined in the 2019 Constitution, which defines the Communist Party of Cuba as 'the superior leading political force of society and of the state.' For Monreal, that formulation 'works as an instrument for preserving power, not as a limit on it,' the same outlet reported. Diario de Cuba summed up the argument as a link between the economic disaster and the Communist Party's monopoly, around one central question: why do those who fail keep making the decisions?
Monreal places the package of 176 measures approved by the National Assembly in June 2026, which he has previously called a 'monster' and a 'deformed hybrid,' within 'a recurring pattern of grand plans designed from the political and party center, where, when their diagnoses and plans fail, there are no substantial consequences for those in power,' CiberCuba reported.
The article is part of the 'Cuba Transformación' project, a 120-page proposal signed by Monreal together with Mauricio de Miranda Parrondo, Omar Everleny Pérez Villanueva, Ricardo Torres Pérez and Pavel Vidal Alejandro, backed by the Cuba Study Group and the Observatory on the Cuban Economy. That road map calls for replacing the centralized model with a social market economy tied to a democratic rule of law, and rejects the Chinese or Vietnamese model of economic reform without democratization, according to CiberCuba.
Sources: CiberCuba · Diario de Cuba
Data updated: 2026-11-09T16:15:00.000Z