Cuban lawmakers hoped to make socialism an inalienable part of the Cuban constitution in a marathon session of Congress on Monday, attended by President Fidel Castro.
The 601 lawmakers, 535 of whom are members of the Cuban Communist Party, are to meet on Monday and Tuesday for as ”long as it takes” to debate the proposed constitutional amendment.
”We are going to work by the people and for the people,” declared Ricardo Alarcon, speaker of the Cuban congress, who dubbed the session an exercise in ”direct democracy”.
He accused the United States, by contrast, of having ”kidnapped the concept of democracy and stripped it of its real content”.
Radio and television channels are to provide live coverage of the two-day session, while the ministry of labour declared a nationwide holiday on Monday and Tuesday so workers could follow the discussion.
Castro called for the session after more than 99% of
Cubans last week supported the idea in a ”referendum” which voters were not given the option of rejecting.
The proposed amendment to the constitution of the only
communist-ruled nation in the Americas seeks to ”expressly state the will of the people that the economic, political and social rules in the republic’s constitution are untouchable”.
It adds that ”economic, diplomatic and political relations with any other nation will never be negotiated under aggression, threat or pressure by a foreign power”.
For his part, Elizardo Sanchez Santa Cruz, president of the opposition Cuban Human Rights Commission, said he was ”surprised and alarmed” by the ”arbitrary manner in which the Cuban government decided to paralyse the country” with the surprise two-day holiday.
”It’s very worrisome, given the poverty in the country,” he said, adding that ”few governments in the world today would dare to make this type of decision”.
In May, dissidents on the island presented the National Assembly with an unprecedented petition calling for free, multiparty elections and economic liberalization.
Members of the country’s dissident groups charged that the government’s ”referendum” was a transparent ploy to foil Cuban aspirations to democracy.
Castro said earlier that Monday’s debate would last ”for however long it takes … to examine the constitutional reform bill”.
From June 15-18, some 130 000 tables were set up around the country to encourage the 8,25 million Cubans over the legal voting age of 16 to support the amendment enshrining socialism — the country’s ruling ideology for the past 43 years — in Cuba’s
constitution.
The 8, 188 198 signatures were delivered on Friday to the National Assembly in a solemn ceremony in Revolution Square, after about 99,25% of the voting population signed on to the initiative. Sapa-AFP