{"id":227679,"date":"2020-09-18T08:52:21","date_gmt":"2020-09-18T12:52:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/oncubanews.com\/en\/?p=227679"},"modified":"2020-09-18T08:52:21","modified_gmt":"2020-09-18T12:52:21","slug":"predictions-iii","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/oncubanews.com\/en\/opinion\/predictions-iii\/","title":{"rendered":"Predictions (III)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Let\u2019s imagine for a moment that there were three parties in Cuba, named the Renewed Socialism Party, the Cuban Revolutionary Party and the Fidelista Party. Let\u2019s imagine that the three of them went to elections and governed according to popular vote, with platforms dedicated to the construction of a socialism with differentiated emphasis, but definitely anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist, for social justice, equity, sovereignty, social development (not only economic growth), citizens\u2019 democracy, human rights, and most especially, the dignity of all Cubans.<\/span><\/p>\n

According to this scenario, I wonder how many in the rest of the world would consider Cuba a fully democratic republic or, on the contrary, would continue to judge it as lacking an essential pluralism, only conceivable in a full-fledged \u201cmarket economy,\u201d and with antisocialist and \u201cright-wing\u201d parties, including those akin to \u201cAmerican democracy.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Now imagine that these three parties are governing Cuba at this time, and that, instead of taking turns in power according to the electoral cycle, they share the same Council of Ministers and Council of State, they sit in the meetings of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba (PCC) and the National Assembly, and they agree to govern collegially and make decisions by consensus. Of course, the political process slows down and also becomes more contradictory. At a more delayed and ambivalent pace it also contributes to the new policies, here and everywhere, to suffer some degradation as of when they are agreed and enunciated, formulated in regulations, and in the end implemented, to follow a path subject to interpretations, resilience and bureaucratic inertia, until they are applied at the bottom.<\/span><\/p>\n

Thus, when a crisis and national emergency situation typically manages to narrow the range of consensus, there is no alternative but to implement pending agreements and take others under pressure, track their implementation down to the bottom, targeting intermediate obstacles and local disruptive agents, and using all the resources of power, from the exhortation of citizens to the application of the law, including coercion.<\/span><\/p>\n

The publication <\/span>Cuba y su desaf\u00edo econ\u00f3mico y social<\/span><\/i> <\/a>(Cuba and its economic and social challenge; September 8, 2020), a summary of the \u201cSocioeconomic strategy to boost the economy and face the global crisis caused by COVID-19,\u201d illustrates a situation such as described in the previous paragraph. Signed by the Ministry of Economy, it affirms that \u201cthis Strategy will lead us to be in more favorable conditions for the analyzes to be carried out in the 8th Congress of the PCC.\u201d It responds, by the way, to my first lucubration about the next Party event, in this same column, a month ago.<\/span><\/p>\n

Predicciones (I)<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n