Cubans protest over power outages four days after Hurricane Ian

Four days after Ian, a category three hurricane, protests have sprung up at different points in Cuba over the lack of electricity after the storm.

Alex Bandrich, 35, a graphic designer with his chihuahua, Richi, in hand, was at a protest with more than 100 people on a main road of the wellheeled Vedado neighbourhood on Saturday night.

“I haven’t had light in my house for the last five days,” he said. “I’ve lost food, although I kept some at a friend’s place [with power], and I’ve had to take my daughter to my mother-in-law’s place.”

Given the stress that people without power are under, the atmosphere at the Vedado protest was calm. Police didn’t interfere with the protest, there were no arrests. Instead, the state opted to send officials, accompanied by party members, to talk with protesters.

María Perez, who identified as a regular citizen, said she had come to talk to protesters to defend “the revolution”. “Every time I think the social project that we have created is in danger, I will be here,” she said.

Still protesters’ tactics were creative, creating a quandary for the state: there were reports that people lined up in the street to block traffic outside the capital’s main baseball stadium; in east Havana, others put rocks outside a bus station, saying they wouldn’t allow transport to run until the power came back.

State authorities say that power – which went out across Cuba after Hurricane Ian – was mostly back in the capital as of Friday afternoon.

Since the hurricane, protests have also been reported in the western city of Matanzas and the eastern city of Holguin.

On Thursday and Friday night there was no internet in Cuba. It was not clear whether this was coordinated by the government in order to make protests more difficult to organise (as has happened before) or whether the internet blackout was a result of power failure caused by the storm. The internet was mostly functioning Saturday night.

The Cuban government regularly tries to distinguish between “legitimate” protests by upstanding citizens, and “counter-revolutionary” protests, typically backed by the US, which imposes sanctions on the country. While the former is enshrined in the country’s 2019 constitution, the government says it will not tolerate the latter. The distinction, however, often breaks down in practice.