Despite Obama, no revolution expected at Cuba party congress

Cuba's communist party gathers Saturday for a rare party congress less than a month after US President Barack Obama's historic visit, but Cubans eager for change are likely to be disappointed.

Held every five years, party congresses normally are the main political event in a one-party system like Cuba's that brooks no dissent.

The last one in 2011 introduced significant reforms of the island's moribund Soviet-style economy, cracking open the door to small-scale private enterprise and foreign investment.

This one, the Seventh Congress, had raised expectations in Cuba and abroad that it could set the stage for accelerated political and economic changes following a rapprochement with longtime foe the United States.

But Cuban authorities have poured cold water on those hopes, signalling that continuity will be the watchword at the four-day, close-door session involving 1,000 delegates and another 3,500 invited participants.

In contrast with the last party congress, which was preceded by a wide-ranging public debate, this one will be held in secret, with only the state-controlled press allowed to cover the proceedings.

- Secret proceedings -

For the first time, the agenda of the Congress has been kept secret and will not be debated publicly, something that has surprised even the party's rank and file.

The state press has said the congress will review the progress made in the economic reforms set in motion by 84-year-old President Raul Castro, who succeeded his ailing brother Fidel in 2006 and plans to step down in 2018.
The congress is expected to approve an economic and social development program for the 2016-2030 period.

According to the official media, 21 percent of the 313 measures approved in 2011 have been implemented and another 77 percent are in the process of being carried out, while two percent have been set aside "for various reasons."

If the pace of reform has been slow, Cuban diplomacy has been very active over the past five years, its efforts crowned by the spectacular rapprochement with the United States and a dialogue that is now underway with the European Union.

But Cuba's opening to the West is also proving to be a gradual one, reflecting Raul Castro's caution as the island undergoes a transition to a new generation of leaders after more than 55 years under the Castro brothers.

Many Cuba watchers are skeptical that the party congress will say much about the country's political direction over the next five years.

"I think it will be more of the same," said Mauricio de Miranda, a Cuban economist at Colombia's Javeriana University.

"The fundamental problem is that there is a lack of consensus on the country's development strategy, on the changes that are necessary and on the pace at which they should be made," he said.
Cuban authorities appear more interested in making it clear that, despite the economic reforms and the normalization of relations with the United States, there will be no capitalistic restoration, not now and not when Cuba's revolutionary leaders leave the scene.

The party "has defined goals, but no programs or formulas to achieve them," said Jorge Gomez Barata, a former party ideologist, attributing it to "the failure of the model established in the Soviet Union."

He said there were two schools of thought in the party: those who think "that the economic reforms would be more effective if they were accompanied by political, constitutional, electoral and juridical reforms."

The other group sees those kinds of changes as concessions "that could favor the penetration of foreign ideas and even lead to a capitalistic restoration."

- Leadership changes -

The party congress is expected to elect a new Central Committee -- the current one has 116 members -- and a 14-person Politburo. Raul Castro could be re-elected first secretary for a second and final five year term.

However, the resignation in October of Interior Minister Abelardo Colome, a Politburo member and vice president of the Council of State, was seen as an invitation to others in the older generation to make way for younger leaders.

A renewal of the leadership could speed up changes that are supposed to be completed by 2018, such as a constitutional reform and a reform of the electoral system.

"The next congress could advance in proposing to Cubans a national project adapted to the new circumstances and world demands," Gomez Barata said.
SourcE: AFP