Critical Communist Party Congress begins Saturday in Cuba
Miami Herald
Juan O. Tamayo

Cuba’s most ambitious economic reforms in decades and perhaps a hint on Raúl Castro’s successor will be on the table Saturday when the Communist Party opens its first Congress — traditionally a time for heavyweight decisions — in 14 years.

Castro called the four-day Congress to approve a set of 291 “guidelines,” made public last year, for reforms designed to rescue the stagnant economy by decentralizing its Soviet-styled controls and allowing the growth of private enterprise.

But the guidelines underwent editing amid a pitched debate on the changes and there’s been no word on the new version. That’s the version the Congress is all but certain to approve before it ends Tuesday, setting Cuba’s long-term economic strategy and giving the party’s seal of approval to Castro’s rule.

The initial guidelines “were just a big wish list, just recommendations … with no priorities or core ideas,” said Archibald Ritter, an expert on the Cuban economy at Carleton University in Ottawa who visited the island last month.

The new set will retain most of the key ideas for reforms but will be “a little more coherent, a little more workable. They should simplify the wording of the changes and establish priorities,’’ Ritter added.

Party officials reported receiving 600,000 proposals for changing the first guidelines during party-organized debates last year. Cuban officials told former U.S. President Jimmy Carter last month that two-thirds of the guidelines had to be changed but did not specify which items or in which direction — in favor of more or less reform.

Castro has made it clear since he replaced brother Fidel after a health emergency in 2006 that the island’s economy is in deep trouble, mired in low productivity, high inefficiency and burgeoning corruption.

He has described the economy as being “on the edge of the abyss,’’ and declared, “we fix it or we sink.” Yet he has repeatedly said that it’s not headed toward capitalism and made it clear that political changes are out of the question.

Castro has ordered draconian reductions in state spending, including layoffs for more than 1.5 million public employees over three years. Budget cuts also have begun to affect sectors such as health and education, long portrayed as key achievements of the revolution.

An accompanying opening toward foreign investments, more autonomy for state enterprises and more permits for small private businesses — so far mostly “self employment’’ such as barbers — is unprecedented in a country where the government has run every single legal business since 1968, down to the corner cafeteria.

But the changes also are so politically sensitive that Castro refuses to call them “reforms” and prefers the less charged term “updates.”

He called the Congress for 2009 then postponed it, saying it needed careful planning because it would be the last for Cuba’s “historic” leaders — Fidel is 84 and Raul is 79. But the delay also suggested arguments between reformers and those who believe that any shifts toward capitalism might allow political instability.

For Cubans on the island, all the talk of changes and a crucial party Congress that would “institutionalize’’ Castro’s reforms has sparked an amalgam of anxiety and optimism.

A poll unveiled last week by the non-profit International Republican Institute in Washington indicated 91 percent of Cubans favor economic changes, 78 percent favor political changes — and 14 per cent believed the government “will succeed in solving Cuba’s biggest problem in the next few years.”

“It’s a time of fear and skepticism — fear the changes will take away what little they have,” like the ration card, “and doubt about any real changes,’’ a Havana resident man with access to people across the island told El Nuevo Herald.

The ration card, which used to provide about 10 days’ worth of food and personal hygiene items per month at highly subsidized prizes, has been whittled back by Castro to reduce government spending, and may be eliminated later this year.

Most of the resistance to the changes comes not from hard-line communists who oppose the shift to private enterprise but from bureaucrats who profit from the corruption that permeates the country, said the Havana man, who asked for anonymity to protect his job.

Ritter and other Cuba analysts outside the island said they will be watching the PCC Congress for word on key issues:

• The pace of the 1.8 million layoffs. The first 500,000 were to have been completed by April 1, but were postponed amid complaints and the absence of alternate jobs.

• Plans for cooperatives that are to be created by turning over small state enterprises, such as carpentry shops, to their employees.

• New aid programs for the elderly and poor, hardest hit by cuts in the ration cards.

Jaime Suchlicki, a University of Miami professor who co-edited 11 annual editions of the academic publication “Cuban Communism,” said he does not expect any real discussion of the reforms during the Congress.

“This is not a debating event. Traditionally, the policies that are to be ratified at a Congress already have been endorsed by the Political Buro,’’ — the party’s top leadership body, Suchlicki added.

Still totally unclear is whether the more than 1,000 delegates hand-picked to attend the Congress — including Fidel and Raúl Castro — will tackle a renovation of the Communist Party’s leadership structures.

Cuba’s constitution describes the party as “the highest ruling force of the society and the State” — in essence a force more powerful than the government. Its Congresses must be held every five years, but the last one was in 1997.

Party Web pages show its 125-member Central Committee, apparently last elected as a group in 1997, includes several officials who have fallen out of favor such as Rogelio Acevedo, fired as civil aviation chief amid a corruption scandal last year.

They also show the 19 members of the Political Bureau include Fidel Castro as first secretary — though he wrote last month that he had not exercised those duties since he nearly died in 2006 — and Raúl Castro as second secretary.

So the questions abound.

Will Fidel be re-elected first secretary, or will Raúl be elevated to replace him. If so, what would happen to Fidel, and who might fill his brother’s shoes as No. 2.

That could be an old-timer who would keep the seat warm — say, Jose Ramon Machado Ventura or Ramiro Valdes — or a younger person whose selection would be a hint of Cuba’s future leadership.

Castro is expected to deliver a keynote speech on the economic reforms and any leadership changes when the Congress concludes on Tuesday.