There was a time when International Workers’ Day was marked in Cuba by parades involving more than a million people marching through Havana’s Revolution Square. Many came out of conviction, some because they were pressured, others to enjoy the party.
This Monday, however, the square will be empty, after the Cuban Communist party cancelled this year’s celebrations due to gasoline shortages that are crippling the island’s economy.
For weeks, motorists have been sleeping in their cars outside petrol stations in queues that stretch for miles and last for days.
President Miguel Díaz-Canel has said the island is only receiving two-thirds of the petrol it needs, and that the shortfall is due to supplier nations failing to fulfil their contractual agreements.
William LeoGrande, professor of government at American University in Washington DC, who has written extensively about Cuban politics, said that turnout for the May Day parade has gradually diminished over the years as the huge excitement and hope about the social changes the revolution brought about in the 1960s and 1970s has been largely replaced by disappointment about the hardship since the 1990s.