Cuban people’s democracy in practice
The quest for productivity and economic sovereignty
The First Ordinary Session of the Tenth Legislative Assembly of People’s Power was held at the Palace of Conventions in Havana on July 22-23, 2023. So-called for its being the tenth legislative assembly to be constituted since the system of people’s power was established by the Cuban Constitution of 1976. Each legislative assembly has a term of five years; it meets regularly in ordinary sessions, and extraordinary sessions can be convoked as there is need. The July 22-23 ordinary session was the first in the current legislature’s term.
The Tenth Legislative Assembly was established by the elections of 2022-2023. Some 55% of the 470 deputies are women, 45% are blacks and mulattos, and 95% are college graduates. All sectors of the society are represented, including production, service, the press, education, health, science, culture, sport, students, religion, the military, and owners of small-scale private enterprises. Voter participation rate in the first stage of the elections on November 27, 2022, was 68.58%; followed by 75.92% voter participation in the second stage, conducted on March 26, 2023.
I have in previous commentaries described the Cuban electoral process, which occurs in two stages every five years. The first stage, the municipal elections, consists of elections of the delegates of 169 municipal assemblies in the nation, which are elected by the secret vote of the people in 12,427 voting districts. Two or more candidates are on the ballot, resulting from a series of neighborhood nomination assemblies. Once constituted, the 169 municipal assemblies nominate deputies for the National Assembly, on the basis of recommendations made by candidacy commissions formed by representatives of the mass organizations: the Workers’ Federation of Cuba, the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution (a nationwide organization of neighborhood organizations), the Federation of Cuban Women, the National Association of Small Agriculturalists, the University Student Federation, and the Federation of Secondary School Students. In the second stage of elections to the National Assembly, the voters cast a vote of “yes” or “no” for the candidates nominated by the municipal assemblies.
Please see my previous commentaries on the Cuban political process, which is poorly understood outside of Cuba, even by the “friends of Cuba” and those who call for an end to the economic sanctions against Cuba. “Participatory democracy in Cuba: The 2018 constitutional assembly formed by an entire people,” September 10, 2021; “Cuban people’s democracy at work: National Assembly of People’s Power approves eight new laws,” May 17, 2022; “Cuba elects delegates to people’s assemblies: False premises of US blockade exposed,” December 2, 2022; “Cuba wins the 2023 elections: The socialist nation continues to attain legitimacy for its sovereign road,” March 28, 2023.
The deputies of the National Assembly work in permanent commissions, which met on June 18 and June 19, prior to the First Ordinary Session of the National Assembly.
The Commission on Health and Sport discussed how to increase the quality of medical services for the satisfaction of the people, based on the visits of the deputies to health institutions of primary and secondary attention in 11 provinces and 42 municipalities. It noted that many of the medical consultation areas were in a poor construction state, in spite of a program of repair and maintenance; that the health system has suffered from an exodus of doctors and nurses, due to the low salaries of health workers; and that there was insufficient availability of contraception. In the majority of places visited, it was observed and appreciated that the health workers’ collectives are highly committed to their work in support of the communities and their patients, in spite of the limitations that they face every day in carrying out their functions.
The Minister of Industry, Eloy Álvarez Martínez, reported to the Commission on Industry, Construction, and Energy. He noted that 54% of the industrial products consumed in the country are produced nationally. He stressed the need to continue working on the elevation of national production, in accordance with the import-substitution policy of the nation. To this end, the Socialist State Enterprises are being given more autonomy for self-management. In addition, the goal is to increase exports, principally the exportation of steel, in order to receive income that would permit independence and sovereignty.
The Vice-Minister of Science, Technology, and Environment, Adianez Taboada Zamora, reported on the Plan of the State for the confrontation of climate change, known as Mission Life, to the Commission on Education, Culture, Science, Technology, and Environment. She reported that significant progress had been made with respect to the protection of the waters, soils, and coastal ecosystems. However, most of the measures are more reactive than preventive, and the Plan confronts the obstacles of limited technological capacities as well as the lack of perception of the real impact of climate change.
Reinol García Moreiro, Vice-Minister of Public Health, reported on the Program of Infant-Maternal Protection to the commissions of Health and Sport and of Attention to Youth, Children, and the Right of Women to Equality. He noted that up to the year 2020, the nation’s infant mortality rate showed a sustained tendency to reduction, reaching a low point in 2018 with a rate of four per 1000 live births. After 2020, this tendency has changed, as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic and the national and world economic situation. He also reported on the problem of teenage pregnancy. He noted that the demographic policy is to provide incentives for fertility, on the basis of respect for sexual and reproductive rights, but not through adolescent pregnancies.
The Minister of Domestic Commerce, Betsy Díaz Velázquez, reported to the deputies of the Commission on Attention to Services that Cuba has received 43 visits from 15 countries from businesspersons interested in different areas of investment in Cuba. She noted that two joint venture enterprises of the Cuban state and foreign capital will be initiated in the next couple of months, one involving the wholesale commercialization of railroad products and construction materials, and the other consisting of wholesale commercialization of food, hygiene, and household productive.
The Minister of Energy and Mines, Vicente de la O Levy, reported to the commissions on Industry, Energy, and Construction and on Education, Culture, Science, Technology, and Environment. He reported on the efforts at restoration of the National Electric System, which had been experiencing interruptions of services due to insufficient resources and supplies for its maintenance. As a result of the improvements, the system is now operating in a stable form, with minimal interruptions of service; and by the end of the year and the beginning of 2024, the electric system will be operating in a much better condition. He also reported on the exploration and development of new wells for the production of petroleum.
Eduardo Martínez Díaz. President of the pharmaceutical group BioCubaFarm, reported to the Commission on Health and Sport on the production of 251 medicines by the Cuban pharmaceutical and biotechnological industry. He explained that the limited availability of raw materials, caused by the blocking of financial transactions by the United States and by a world shortage of some raw materials, had created a shortage in the national production of medicine. Nevertheless, adjustments to this situation are being developed, including an increase in income by means of pharmaceutical exportations and a search for new providers and new purchasing strategies.
Leticia Morales González, First Vice-Minister of Economy and Planning, reported to the Commission on Economic Affairs. She reported on the slight growth in GDP, driven by a partial recovery of tourism, but limited by a continuing decline in agricultural and industrial production. And she reported on the country’s importations and exportations as well as the Program for Macroeconomic Stabilization. These issues would be retaken by the Minister of Economy and Planning in his report to the First Ordinary Session of the National Assembly.
Vladimir Regueiro Ale, Minister of Finances and Prices, reported to the Commission on Economic Affairs on the limited effectiveness of the measures adopted for the control of prices. He noted that the consumer price index at the close of 2022 registered an increase of 39%, caused principally by an increase in international prices and the effects of the intensification of the U.S. blockade, which has caused a high state deficit in recent years. He further noted that in the first semester of 2023, prices have increased by 18%. In response to this inflationary situation, the government has adopted measures, including the control over commercial entities of their margins of profit. However, the measures have not been systematically applied, and there is a sentiment among the people that there is no option but to pay abusive prices. Therefore, abusive or speculative prices have not been effectively regulated. He proposed consolidating a system of monitoring, regulation, and control of prices.
During the First Ordinary Session of the Tenth Legislative Assembly of People’s Power on July 23, Alejandro Gil Fernández, Minister of Economy and Planning, reported on the state of the Cuban economy. He observed that there was a drastic fall in GDP from 2019 to 2020, as a result of the closing of tourism, the nation’s principal industry, due to the Covid pandemic. There has been a “very light” recovery from 2021 to the first semester of 2023, for an accumulated grown of 3.1% in the period. However, the slight recovery has not pertained to agriculture and manufacturing, which have maintained a downward trend. Including the slight recovery, the GDP today remains 8.2% below what it was in 2019.
Gil noted that the light growth in the first half of 2023 was due to an increase in tourism and in exportations (tobacco, rum, sea products, and biopharmaceuticals), as well as an increase in family remittances from abroad. The decline was led by the continued declined in the production of sugar, honey, nickel, and charcoal, which did not comply with the expectations of the economic plan. In his view, the gradual post-pandemic recuperation of the economy has not attained the necessary level.
With respect to tourism, there has been a gradual recovery, with the arrival of 1.3 million foreign visitors so far this year, which represents 51% of what was attained in 2019, when international tourism was at its height. Because of the increase in national tourists participating in the hotels and services initially designed for international tourism, the Cuban system now measures national tourism in the form of “tourist days,” and there have been 7.2 million tourist days by Cuban nationals in the current year.
Gil reported that at the end of 2022, general inflation had reached a rate of 39%, driven fundamentally by the high prices of food products and non-alcoholic beverages, which experienced an increase of 63% during the year. Gil declared that this is the most visible problem of the economy, because it effects the purchasing power of the Cuban salary as well as the role of national money in the economy. The remedy is to deepen the implementation of the measures of the economic plan, because they are designed to increase production, the only true remedy to inflation, in accordance with the economic law of supply and demand, which no nation constructing socialism can prudently ignore.
Gil stressed the need to advance more rapidly with the measures that are key components of the economic plan for recovery: increasing national agricultural and industrial production, which is critical for creating a balance of production and demand, necessary for the control of inflation; establishing stability in the generation of electricity and in the supply of petroleum; the implementation of incentives for the importation of raw materials and supplies that are necessary for national production; and the capturing of foreign currencies, such as the US dollar or the Euro. In addition, it is important to coordinate the productive and commercial ties between the state and private sectors of the economy.
Although the new Cuban social and economic model of 2012 is a socialist-oriented model that includes state and private capital (see “Realist pragmatism in socialist Cuba: Cuba’s socialist-oriented mixed economy under state direction,” July 29, 2022), the state sector remains dominant, but the private sector is rapidly growing. Gil noted that in the country there exists a single state managed system for the production and distribution of goods and services. It is composed of 1,874 state enterprises, 270 merchant societies, 159 affiliated companies, and 119 state-owned small and medium enterprises, which account for 92% of sales and 75% of exportations and employ nearly one and one-half million workers. At the same time, there are “new economic actors” composed of private small and medium enterprises and non-agricultural cooperatives. During the year, 1,875 private small and medium enterprises and four non-agricultural cooperatives were approved; they employ 29,561 workers. The new actors operate fundamentally in the secondary and tertiary sectors of the economy, with only 1.2% of their activities occurring in the primary sector. At present, there is a process of reform of the state enterprises, with the intention of increasing their productivity, especially important because of the dominance of the state enterprises in the primary sector.
With respect to foreign investment, Gill reported that fifteen new businesses have been established during the first semester of 2023, which is six more than the first semester of 2022. It is anticipated that 22 new foreign enterprises will be incorporated by the conclusion of the year. This has been accomplished in spite of the financial persecution of companies in third countries as a component of the US blockade.
Gil insists on the need to give priority to persons and communities in conditions of vulnerability, because in Cuba no one is abandoned to their fate. For this reason, the economic plan includes the delivery of food and domestic articles to families in need, financial support for the basic food basket for all Cuban families, and social assistance to persons without family support.
Gil concluded that now is not the time for analysis, but for doing. Each of the measures enacted has been well-thought and is in accordance with the Cuban social and economic reality. The situation is serious, and there are no easy solutions. We must use all resources at our disposal. We have the measures that contain the solutions; they must be implemented without improvising or adlibbing. Cuba again calls us to unified action. In the economy, as in all our challenges, Cuba will overcome.
During the First Ordinary Session of the Tenth Legislative Assembly, Vice Prime Minister Jorge Luis Tapia Fonseca reported on the implementation of the Law of Food Sovereignty and Food and Nutritional Security. He maintained that the 63 measures of the Law, intended to dynamize agricultural production, have not attained an impact on food production in the nation. The principal problem, he maintained, is the lack of understanding of the concept of food sovereignty and the need to produce food in a sustainable form, reducing dependence on importation. In addition, there is inadequate integration of different actors as well as slowness in the creation of self-consumption in the productive entities. Traditional common practices of self-production in rural areas have been lost, such as the raising of pigs and chickens. And there should be more direct selling by producers at cheaper prices, eliminating intermediaries.
Tapia Fonseca stressed the importance of strategies of local development. Alternative solutions to shortages must be found, because in some cases there is a total lack of financing, diesel fuel, and fertilizer.
The Minister of Finances and Prices, Vladimir Regueiro Ale, presented the state budget at the First Ordinary Session of the Tenth Legislative Assembly. He noted that 74% of state expenditures of 315 billion Cuban pesos were dedicated to social costs, with 26% of the total social cost dedicated to health services; 23% of the total social cost to pre-school, primary, secondary, and higher education; 3.2% to culture, including television and radio; 1.8% to sport, including participation in international sports events; and 2.6% to social assistance for persons in situations of economic insufficiency and vulnerability. In addition, 16% of state expenditures were dedicated to subsidies for products of high value to the population, such as food products, medicines, electricity, and infrastructure construction. State expenditures also were dedicated to the recuperation of damage caused by the explosion of Hotel Saratoga in Havana, by the fire of supertankers in Matanzas, and by Hurricane Ian in Pinar del Rio. With the close of the year 2022, the accumulated state budget deficit increased to 70 billion Cuban pesos.
At the closing of the First Ordinary Session of the Tenth Legislative Assembly, Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel expressed his satisfaction with the session, for its attention to the causes and solutions of the nation’s problems, such as insufficient production of food, increasing inflation, abusive prices, and the generation of electricity. He noted that the enemies of Cuba seek to fracture national unity and to separate the people from their government, but the option of surrender had been previously erased from Cuban DNA. He noted that the principal obstacles to the revitalization of the economy continue being the economic, commercial, and financial war of the United States; the world economic crisis; and the slow post pandemic recuperation. He noted that the necessary structural economic transformations are in place, so he anticipates a favorable functioning of the economy for the middle term, beginning with the second semester of 2023.
Conclusion
There are noxious elements in representative democracies, such as the political need to criticize proposals of a rival party, and the participation of economic and corporate elites that are driven to distort the public debate in defense of particular interests and profits. In Cuba, dialogue seeking consensus with respect to the nation and the people is shown to be possible.
The necessary truth for humanity continues to be proclaimed by the revolutionary socialist practices of the world, in which cynicism is cast aside, and faith in the future of humanity and in a possible world of peace and prosperity is declared.
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