He was the senior official who had led Cuba's economy since 2018 and his management was marked by absolute failure.
All the recovery plans that he announced crashed, including the so-called “Ordering Task” of 2021, which promised Cubans an improvement through the end of the double currency and a review of prices.
The result was an increase in inflation and the deepening of a crisis that gave rise to the largest migratory exodus in the history of the island.
The dismissal of the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Economy and Planning, Alejandro Gil Fernández, ordered ten days ago by President Miguel Díaz-Canel, exposes a collapse in which different factors are mixed: the food emergency, the dismantling of strategic sectors such as production of sugar, almost non-existent, a fiscal deficit 18.5% higher than that of the previous decade and tensions in the government apparatus, according to analysts and the former minister's own sister, María Victoria Gil.
It was precisely she, a popular Cuban presenter, face of the television program
De la gran scene
for 29 years and now settled in Tenerife, who stated that her brother was the “most hated person in Cuba.”
Gil Fernández was in charge of giving the worst news in recent years.
Even so, Díaz-Canel publicly congratulated her on February 6 on her 60th birthday, among many other messages from economists, political leaders, members of the Communist Party and ministerial cadres.
“Another hug for Alejandro Gil Fernández, on his birthday,” the ruler wrote on X —formerly Twitter—.
It was the second hug she had sent him in just a few days, since on the day of his dismissal she had sent him another one.
In 2018 Gil Fernández, from Villa Clara like Díaz-Canel, was promoted to the position of Minister of Economy the same year that the current president assumed the presidency of the country.
If Díaz-Canel arrived to replace the octogenarian Raúl Castro, Gil Fernández occupied the position held until now by Ricardo Cabrisas, then 82 years old.
Both, less than sixty years old, were part not only of a transfer of powers but also of a generational and image change.
For the first time, those who made the 1959 Revolution did not amass the highest positions in the country.
When he took office, the Cuban economy was not a very accommodating territory but it was less arid than now.
The economic reforms that began with Raúl Castro in power, although they did not solve the structural problems of the economy, meant a respite, especially with the birth of the incipient private sector, the rise of
self-employment
and a certain openness to foreign investment.
In Cuba, which was going through the process of resuming relations with the United States, and where a
celebrity
like Paris Hilton or Beyoncé landed every week, the scenario seemed promising.
It is not clear what would have happened if Donald Trump had not stopped Obama's policy towards the island. Some believe that Cubans would live in better conditions and others are not convinced by the idea of seeing Old Havana turned into Karl Lagerfeld's catwalk. but the truth is that everything that came later accelerated the impoverishment of the Cuban people.
The economist Pavel Vidal, who worked at the Central Bank of Cuba (BCC), affirms that Gil Fernández was responsible for a first phase in which many of the impulses of the reforms that Raúl Castro had begun had already stopped.
“Those first years of Díaz-Canel were of quite great immobility, he had that period of very little momentum in structural reforms, there was not much room for action at that time.”
Now that he leaves behind a position that will be occupied by Joaquín Alonso Vázquez, until then minister-president of the Central Bank of Cuba, Gil Fernández leaves Cubans a worse country.
“The country in 2018, compared to 2024, had a better situation,” says Omar Everleny Pérez Villanueva, former director of the Center for Studies of the Cuban Economy at the University of Havana.
“Cuba received almost four million tourists, the purchasing power of the population was higher, there were no difficulties with fuel, the fiscal deficit was 8% with respect to GDP, the basic basket was delivered normally,” he says.
Now Gil Fernández leaves a country in a much more adverse context.
Cuban economist Mauricio de Miranda, senior professor at the Pontificia Universidad Javeriana in Cali, Colombia, finds it difficult to identify any achievements of Gil Fernández as a minister.
“He's probably a good person, I don't know.
He is seen as someone who is folksy.
But those characteristics are not enough to be a minister,” he points out.
“Some of his statements often demonstrated a weak economic training and an attachment to repeated dogmas.
The errors are enough to explain his dismissal, although I am almost certain that he did nothing other than follow the line they gave him.”
Everleny, for its part, always valued Gil Fernández for his support for opening up to the private sector with the creation of MSMEs, small and medium-sized businesses that were approved in 2021 with legal recognition, after decades of prohibition, although there are still many restrictions. that the Government imposes on these ventures.
“In his speeches he defended them staunchly,” says the economist.
“He was flexible and agile in the approval of MSMEs, reaching more than 10 thousand approvals in two years.”
Specialists agree that one of the worst economic decisions in which Gil Fernández was involved was in the so-called “Ordering Task” of 2021, which sought to get Cuba out of economic stagnation, ending monetary duality, eliminating the convertible peso or CUC, and implementing a reform of prices, salaries and pensions.
“It was also his turn to try to resolve the negative consequences of that failed monetary reform,” says Vidal.
“It was a major challenge that he had and I don't think he handled it well.
I think it is an important failure of the entire economic policy design in Cuba.”
He also believes that the former minister was part of a program of measures “taken year after year, measures that fell on the same thing, partial measures, that were going to put certain patches in certain situations, insisting on seeking efficiency in the socialist state company, thinking that The Cuban model can be improved, the idea of not changing drastically, not making profound reforms but seeking the improvement that has been insisted on so many times and that does not work.
However, economists do not believe that, by way of comparison, Gil Fernández has been strictly a worse Economy Minister than the previous ones.
“I couldn't tell you that he was worse than the previous minister in his performance, but the situation he went through was very adverse,” says Everleny.
From 2018 to date, Cuba has seen the effect of the Trump administration's heavy-handed policy, the delays of the coronavirus pandemic and the consequent drop in tourism, a fundamental sector in the economy and from which it has not recovered. ;
in addition to a decrease in oil aid from Venezuela and Mexico, and an adverse international situation marked by wars, which has affected world economies.
In a country with a high centralization of powers, it is impossible to identify a culprit for the economic situation it is experiencing.
“He is not the only one responsible for the economic results that he has left,” says Everleny.
“In Cuba there is a high centralization, which means that the main decisions are approved by higher levels.
The power structures are designed so that no one takes a different path, and I am not referring to a change in the system, but rather changes in the way the economy is done, such as a new role for the market.”
Regarding the willingness to make any changes that Gil Fernández may have had, the economist believes that, if there were any, he never demonstrated it with results.
“I am referring to the real changes that are needed to get out of the stagnation, he defended the official position of the country.”
Along with Gil Fernández, other officials were also removed from their positions, such as Manuel Santiago Sobrino Martínez, Minister of the Food Industry, and Elba Rosa Pérez Montoya, Minister of Science.
Although no one anticipated dismissals, at the beginning of the year Raúl Castro urged leaders who were not qualified to abandon their positions: “Those who, due to insufficient capacity, lack of preparation or simply because they have become tired, are not up to the standards demanded by the moment.” , they must give their position to another colleague willing to take on the task,” he said.
But the dismissal of Gil Fernández, in the midst of economic reforms, did not cease to surprise and unleashed many speculations: Why now and not before?
Why now, in the midst of the economic crisis that seems to have no end?
Facelift and internal discrepancies
Some explain it by saying that the Government, with Díaz-Canel at the helm, intends to wash its face of the dissatisfaction that the announcement of a package of measures announced to alleviate the long-term damage to the economy triggered among Cubans, but that it means a direct blow to the population's pocket, with the increase of more than 500% in the price of gasoline, the increase in the electricity rate, the liquefied gas cylinder and water, measures that, although they were announced to begin from Last February 1, the government had to delay.
"I believe that a pawn on the chess table needed to be sacrificed so that the blame for the economic disaster would fall on the Ministry of Economy and Planning, everyone knowing that one man cannot be responsible for the economic crisis that is being experienced."
A culprit had to be named and it was Gil Fernández's turn, but everyone agrees that the big problem in Cuba does not lie nor is it in the hands of a single person.
“There are two hypotheses,” says Vidal.
“They want to be able to start with a clean slate after so many failures and all the bad things that have happened to the economy, all the promises that have not been kept in terms of recovery, it can be a strategy to try to find a culprit and give an opinion.” new image, with new ministers and new policies and generate a little hope, which I don't think works anymore," he says.
“That is a variant, the Cuban Government has done it on previous occasions and all governments do it when things do not work.”
Vidal also believes that there may be some type of contradiction between the National Assembly of People's Power, where according to him, last year there were disputes regarding "the data of the budget that was being presented and the measures that were not consistent with what there was." announced by Prime Minister Manuel Marrero.”
María Victoria, however, assured in statements to
YouTuber
Darwin Santana that her brother had important disagreements with the highest levels of the Government over economic policies.
“He has been annoying because he has flatly opposed a whole series of measures that are going to be implemented in our country and that are increasingly designed to harm Cubans even more,” she said.
Gil Fernández will not, from now on, be the person who says that there is no milk for the children, that the basic basket “is a distortion that we have to correct,” that “the economy is in a complex situation,” that the country He does not have credits to buy food abroad, nor will he be the person who, after bad news, asks the people to continue having confidence in the revolution and socialism.
Her sister María Victoria has said that she learned from her sister-in-law that Gil Fernández is “very hurt” and “very disappointed” with the dismissal.
“It is public knowledge that the Cuban Government, throughout its sad history, has used its leaders at will and, when they are no longer useful to them, when they confront each other and stop being puppets, they disappear and despise them,” the presenter wrote on Facebook.
“My brother, the only thing he has done is work tirelessly, trying to save the unsalvageable.”
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