President Miguel Díaz-Canel in Santo Domingo (Dominican Republic) on March 25 during the Ibero-American Summit Mauricio Duenas Castaneda (EFE)
The constitution of the new Cuban parliament did not come as a surprise. As everyone expected, the country’s president, Miguel Díaz-Canel, who is also first secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba, was re-elected this Wednesday for a second term. Prime Minister Manuel Marrero and senior staff of the current leadership of the Government and Council of State will also reprise their posts, as will the historical leaders who remain active, with or without office, and retain their quota in power intact despite his advanced age. Raúl Castro, who will be 92 in June, attended the inaugural session of the tenth legislature of the National Assembly in good looks and was described by almost all speakers as the undisputed leader of the revolution.
Five years ago, when he was elected president, Díaz-Canel adopted “continuity” as his main guiding principle and motto of government. Today, as the island is going through one of the worst crises in its history and the challenges are immense, there seems to be no doubt that the focus for the next five years will be continuity within continuity. In the new cabinet with 29 departments, only four of its owners will change: the ministers for education, higher education, finance and prices, and the ministers for foreign trade and foreign investment. This important ministry, headed for 15 years by Rodrigo Malmierca, representative of a middle generation, goes back into the hands of the historical Ricardo Cabrisas, a veteran (born 1937) who at various times was responsible for the most important economic positions .
Cabrisas himself, Inés María Chapman, Jorge Luís Tapia, Alejandro Gil (chief of the economy), José Luís Perdomo and the historic Ramiro Valdés, 90, who was twice interior minister, remain as deputy prime ministers. Veteran Esteban Lazo was also re-elected as Speaker of Parliament, and the heads of key ministries, including external relations, tourism, the armed forces, public health, interior and industry, remain in office. As is usual in the Cuban Parliament, which grew from 605 to 470 MPs during this legislature, votes to elect these high-level positions were unanimous or overwhelming.
A man at his workplace listens to Díaz-Canel as he addresses the Cuban Congress following his re-election this Wednesday in Havana ALEXANDRE MENEGHINI (Portal)
After the National Assembly and the government were constituted, the first to speak was Marrero, former tourism minister and one of the strongmen of the new generation of leaders, who delivered a barricade-like but self-critical speech, highlighting his “dissatisfaction as head of government because they expected what the people wanted.” did not achieve its goals”. He spoke of the challenges of recent years, citing the “tightening of the US blockade” and attempts by the United States to undermine “order” on the island as the first cause of the difficulties his country is going through, and then the Impact of the crisis aggravated by the Covid-19 epidemic. He said the current one would be “a government on the streets alongside the people” that would fight to “remove the obstacles and obstacles that have led to popular discontent,” stressing the need to “do more produce” and “inflation”, which has shot up exponentially over the past two years, coinciding with the failed implementation of monetary union, which has resulted in Cubans losing a large part of their purchasing power.
Díaz-Canel later intervened, thanking Raúl Castro for “the support and trust that was placed in him”, which he said would never disappoint. He also spoke of the US embargo as the main cause of Cuba’s anxiety, denouncing that this policy has been tightened by Trump and that “Biden claims” to exacerbate internal problems in an attempt to starve Cuba over. He reiterated that Washington had provided “financial support” to “mercenaries” trying to wreak havoc in the country from within, also citing the existence of an international “media campaign” to try to publicize the results of recent elections to falsify . in Cuba, highlighting the high abstention rate. Defending the existing one-party system on the island, the Cuban President said it was necessary to achieve unity and set as priorities to get out of the economic hole “focus on food production, the efficiency of investment processes, the development of the socialist State-owned companies, the complementarity of the various economic actors and inflation”. “We must,” he said, “take on the gigantic challenge without discouragement.”
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The President reiterated that he is aware of how the crisis and deteriorating living conditions are affecting youth, and expressed concern about the “high migration” that has been recorded recently – according to data from the United States in In 2022, almost 300,000 Cubans illegally entered their territory via the Mexican border. “We cannot be part of the politicization of Cuban migration that our enemy defends, but rather build a close relationship with Cuban emigrants because their homeland respects them,” he said, noting that “those of us who resist and build here, these Cubans have”, but not with those who “sold their souls to the devil”.
“Revolution is the method, the way to achieve the greatest possible justice and well-being,” he said, reaffirming his commitment to continuity.
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