Cuba National Assembly Special Session Called for Thursday

By Cafe Fuerte

HAVANA TIMES — The Cuban government has called for a special session of the National Assembly of the People’s Power to be held on Thursday June 1st, to officially approve documents which will govern the national political and economic strategy in the coming years.

The brief statement issued by the government appeared this Monday in official media stated that the Council of State Council had called for the Special Session for Thursday at 9 AM, at the Havana Convention Center.

According to the official statement, the summons to the 600+ legislators has been called so as to analyze the following documents:

1. The Conceptualization of Cuba’s Socialist Social and Economic Model of Development.

2. Guidelines for the Political Party and Revolution for the time period 2016-2021.

Furthermore, information will be given “about the Foundations of the National Economic and Social Development Plan through 2030: the Nation’s Vision, Priorities and Strategic Sectors,” concluded the statement.

Governing documents

The call for a parliamentary session has come a week after a plenary session of the Cuban Communist Party’s Central Committee (PCC) announced that “three governing documents for updating the economic and social model” had been approved after an extensive “popular consultation process.”

The three documents mentioned were the Conceptualization of Cuba’s Socialist Social and Economic Model of Development; the foundations of the National Economic and Social Development Plan through 2030: Nation’s Vision, Priorities and Strategic Sectors”; and the “new ammendments” to the Guidelines for the Party and Revolution’s Economic and Social Politics.”
According to the party plenary session, the Conceptualization of Cuba’s Socialist Social and Economic Model of Development contains the elements that “are the foundation of changes that are needed in order to foster national progress and to consolidate the socialist revolution.”

A cycle comes to a close

With regard to the foundations of the National Economic and Social Development Plan through 2030, it’s a document with “a long-term focus which allows the country’s gradual productive transformation.”

President Raul Castro has claimed that “these are the most studied, discussed and rediscussed documents in the history of the Revolution,” with the participation of over 1.6 million people, including PCC and Young Communists (UJC) members and members of the party’s mass organizations.

The parliamentary session closes the process cycle that started at the 7th PCC Congress, in April 2016.

Approving these documents is a formal step to confirm the government’s program strategy in the face of changes that could take place in Cuba, and to pave the way for the transition of power from the historic generation to new leaders who will shape the Cuban people’s fate under the auspices of a one-party regime.

As he himself has announced, Raul Castro will leave his position as the Head of the State Council (Presidency) in February 2018, but that doesn’t mean that he will give up the Communist Party’s control, which in constitutional terms is “the leading force of society and the State.”

The National Assembly’s regular three day plenary sessions take place twice a year, in July and December.