Raul Castro at Cuban Parliament Session
HAVANA TIMES — Cuban President Raul Castro attends a closed-door session of the island’s one chamber parliament on Saturday with the fight against corruption expected to be one of the topics of discussion.
Around 600 deputies are meeting Havana to participate in the session focusing on financial and budgetary matters, said the official media.
The Comptroller General of the Republic office, created in 2009 and headed by Gladys Bejerano, seeks to combat widespread corruption in state institutions and businesses on the island. It is expected to render a report on its management to the parliament.
It is also expected that Raul Castro will give the closing speech to the parliamentary session, part or all of which will most likely be made public in the following days.
The last time the parliament met was in March to approve a new investment law which seeks to promote the arrival of foreign capital to the island. The law just went into effect this week.
but, as far as I am concerned, history HAS absolved Fidel! As you say, I don’t “waiver,” but that is because I think The Revolution is an ongoing and organic proposition, capable of changing and reforming from within.
Agreed, that real debates, with a variety of views, made in plenary–rather than behind closed doors in executive sessions, should be taking place. All the suggestions made for the plenary congress of the CPP a few years back should be collated, then discussed, in arriving at solutions to the many problems articulated. Old (i.e. Leninist) habits are overcome slowly; however, the the PCC is on the right path. We will know so when such topics are discussed frankly in open sessions. By the way, up until the 1950’s Dade County government used to be non-partisan (as per the Progressive reforms of the early 20th Century). When this was the case, more sectors of society were represented, more was done, the monied interests of development at any cost did not have complete domination of the agenda as they now do. Before, when Cuba had a variety of political parties, the dance of corruption reigned supreme.
OK, let’s just agree that the US political system has evolved from a Constitution that although 200 years out of date, is apparently inviolable. The record of dysfunction of the US Congress and Senate is a problem for the US and its citizens to address and resolve.
The article under discussion is about the Cuban “parliament’. So let’s compare the gathering to the Mother of Parliaments. Westminster debates are public, the Prime Minister and Ministers are subject to open verbal attack by opposition parties and answerable to the electorate. A similar system exists in countries including Australia and Canada. Churchill maintained that the British Parliamentary system had its faults but was better than any of the alternatives. The Cuban “parliament” obeys and confirms the dictate of President Raul Castro Ruz. Pursuit of the corrupt is a political manouvre to obscure another much deeper problem – that is the total and abject failure of Socialismo itself. Because of the gobblyguck of Socialismo speak, corruption in Cuba is not necessarily similar to corruption elsewhere. If a foreign business in Cuba employing state employees and paying the regime for those services, recognises that specific employees are doing a good job and that business then decides to pay those employees over and above that which the state provides – that is defined as corruption.
The purpose of Gladys Bejerano is to indicate to Cubans that the regime is honest and forthright and that the wicked preferably of foreign capitalist origin will be rooted out. So what is new about that? The USSR and the countries it enslaved all pursued a similar system.
This has got nothing to do with the US Congress and Senate.
emagicmtman!! Spoken like a true Castro Apologist with that “Bad old USA” song! Dont ever waver dear!
Unanimity? …your comment was either sarcasm or willful blindness.
I believe that Circles Robinson said it best on his blog (an old post from 2013) when he called the Cuban parliament a rubber stamp committee (see below)
“…Since virtually all decisions are made as executive orders by the Council of Ministers, the parliament is relegated to rubber stamping decisions already made and sometimes already implemented.
Virtually all votes are unanimous and any debates among the members are held behind closed doors. Even an abstention is highly rare. This is to say 612 deputies routinely agree with every executive order passed by the Council of Ministers”
http://circlesonline.blogspot.com/
Come on, that kind of unanimity is nothing to applaud. There is a better word to describe it however, its called “rubber stamp”. The dysfunction in Congress is a nightmare but it is no excuse for the ‘Castro-ation’ of the Cuban parliament.
In the meatime, the U.S. Congress–especially the House, can NEVER agree on anything. I’m glad to see that in Cuba there is unanimity!
How many Americans watch C-SPAN? Not many, and wisely, because the real weeling and dealing takes place betweent the congressmen and senators and the K Street lobbyists at ***** restaurants, not on the floor of the Congress. When I rarely tune in, the representative or senator is usually just playing to the camera, and in the presence of an empty House or Senate. More can get done in executive session, anyway, when representatives are not playing to the camera, but are getting on with the business at hand. The only business at hand in the U.S. Congress is selling out the people to the highest bidder!
My Cuban friends and family seldom agree on the time of day. Doesn’t it strike anyone odd that 600 Cuban parliamentarians can manage to unanimously agree on every vote that comes before them?
Guess the Castro “government” does not have C-SPAN since no international press was allowed in! How do the Cuban citizens know what is going on? (heavy Cuban sarcasm)!
HAVANA (AP) — Cuban parliamentarians met Saturday in one of their twice annual sessions, with the country’s limping economy and the 2014 budget foremost on the agenda. Foreign journalists were not allowed access to the gathering at a convention center in western Havana.
https://news.yahoo.com/cuba-mulls-economy-graft-parliament-session-150935232.html