Cuba marks 100th anniversary of Fidel Castro's birth amid energy crisis

Cuba on Thursday marked the 100th anniversary of the birth of its revolutionary leader, Fidel Castro, who died in Havana in 2016 at the age of 90.

Cuba's Communist Party has spent the week celebrating the late revolutionary leader with exhibitions, concerts, and conferences.

This year’s commemoration of the man whose legacy continues to dominate life in Cuba, comes amid one of the country's worst crises in living memory.

Cubans are facing acute shortages of food and water, and chronic power cuts, exacerbated by a US oil embargo and hardened sanctions.

For many, today's hardship highlights the absence of a leader of the 1959 socialist revolution which saw people given free healthcare and education.

But today, those things barely exist.

While supporters remember him as having guided Cuba through multiple crises, some are questioning the revolution’s promises and asking whether his successors are up to the job.

Before placing Castro's portrait in the window, Leonel Suarez gives it a kiss. The 54-year-old has spent years collecting revolutionary memorabilia.

"Fidel would have a strategy at a time like this," he said.

In a workshop in Old Havana, amid cracked walls and aging work tools, 54-year-old repairman Rogelio Valdivia describes himself as a bonafide "Fidelista".

"I was born in the Revolution and through it I was able to find my way," he said, lamenting the loss of Castro's leadership in Cuba today.

"Fidel is no longer here, and nobody has the ability Fidel had."

Those who supported Castro throughout his years in power are among those hardest hit today.

One of them is 86-year-old Angela Gutierrez, who says she feels "disappointed" by the direction Cuba has taken.

"Why do they keep cutting the power so much?" she asked after visiting several market stalls without buying anything because prices were too high. "They're ruining things".

For Castro's critics, Cuba's problem is not the absence of Castro, but the legacy he left behind.

Manuel Cuesta, a 63-year-old historian and opposition activist, recalled seeing Castro as a "redeemer" in his youth who had made Cuba what it aspired to be.

Over time, he said, that image faded as the reality of life on the island drifted further from the Revolution's promises.

Today, Cuesta believes worsening living conditions have led many Cubans to see Castro as the "original architect of this national disaster."

Hassan Perez, a historian, former student leader and close collaborator of Castro, acknowledged that the centenary was arriving under "the most complex conditions that could have been imagined".

The social contract forged by the Revolution, he said, "has eroded" in recent years.

For decades, Cuba offered social protections in exchange for strict political discipline. Many Cubans now question whether that bargain still holds.

Yet for many, affection for Castro survives even as daily life becomes harder.

Mildred Barreto, a 66-year-old cleaner, still calls him "comandante", meaning commander. But she admits life in Cuba today is a struggle.

"We suffer a lot now," she said. Then she delivered a verdict shared by many of Castro's remaining admirers. "With our comandante," she said, "it wasn't like this."

Castro’s 95-year-old brother, Raul, the last surviving leader of the revolution and still seen by some as Cuba’s de facto leader, attended commemorations on Thursday.

Washington hopes its crippling oil embargo will bring a change in government and economic and political reform on the communist-ruled island.