Selena Lambert Ortega, a 24-year-old from Santiago de Cuba, invited her fellow citizens to choose who they believed should be Cuba’s next president, in a Facebook poll posted on Jan. 12. Within hours, the post went viral.
Respondents overwhelmingly favored U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, the son of Cuban American immigrants.
A few hours later, State Security agents in Santiago de Cuba, the island’s second-largest city, summoned Lambert Ortega and ordered her to delete the poll.
Before the post was removed, Rubio had received around 35,000 votes, while the current president, Miguel Diaz-Canel, received only 475.
What began as a simple post on social media turned into a revealing snapshot of current public sentiment, according to Ninoska Perez Castellon, a radio host and a prominent member of the Cuban exile community in Miami….
Momentum Builds for Regime Change in Cuba
