Machado Ventura: Neither Young nor Female

Havana/If anyone embodies the most antiquated orthodoxy of the Cuban political system, it is undoubtedly Jose Ramon Machado Ventura. With his frail gait and infinite power, the vice president of the Councils of State and Ministers represents the most reactionary and ultra-conservative wing of the island’s government. Thus, the excessive role he has gained in the media in recent weeks worries many.

Machadito, as his elders call him, has starred this summer in activities ranging from visits to sugar mills and a meeting with cattle ranchers, to the speech at the closing ceremony of the Federation of Cuban Women Congress, a day at the 10 Congress of the Young Communist League, and the closing words this Saturday at the National Council of the University Students Federation. All this, although he is neither a farmer, nor a woman and much less young.

So many photos and statements have been published in the official press about the second secretary of the Party Central Committee are giving shape to a question on the mind of many Cubans. Will the most intense hardliners end up imposing themselves on the reformers who will potentially be part of power in Cuba? The frequent appearances of Machado Ventura on the public scene leave no room for hope.

Will the most hardliners end up imposing themselves on the reformers who will potentially be part of power in Cuba?

The little tree man, as some call this functionary, is loyal to the core and grey in every mitochondria of his cells. To him is attributed a circular that prohibited the display of Christmas trees in hotels and public places in 1995. Years later, life imposed its own designs and now Santa Claus and colored lights are seen everywhere from the first days of December, in a defiant gesture that must in no way please this man who, despite being a doctor by profession, has long since forgotten the last time he treated a patient.

This octogenarian, who acts as if he knows everything, represents what should end once and for all in Cuba. He incarnates this old-fashioned power that only approaches those below only to demand from them greater efficiency and more sacrifices. In his person is the sum of despotism, arrogance, the superiority of someone who hasn’t boarded a bus in decades, nor counted out the centavos to buy a a couple of pounds of chicken, and much less felt the cold emptiness of a refrigerator maintained on the average monthly salary.

Fortunately for the future, Machado Ventura will be one of those faces that are lost in history. Like in one of those jokes so popular in Eastern Europe that later jumped to the island, when someone looks for their name in some encyclopedia and finds barely a succinct note. Perhaps it will say he was a “cadre of the Cuban Communist Party who lived during the era when Cubans resumed the practice of decorating with trees and garlands at Christmas.”