Communist party congress planned

Via Washington Post:

Cuba will convene a Communist Party congress next year to establish guidelines, including for “when the historic generations are no longer around,” President Raúl Castro announced Monday.

The congress, Cuba’s sixth and the first since 1997, follows a series of minor social changes Castro has decreed to make life easier and less restrictive for ordinary Cubans.

“We have worked hard in these past few months,” the president said during a Central Committee gathering in Havana, aired on state television.

The congress is likely to replace some officials of the 25-member party Politburo, and it could replace Fidel Castro as head of the party. Fidel Castro, 81, has not been seen in public since July 2006, and he stepped down as Cuba’s president in February.

Raúl Castro also announced that he had commuted death sentences for several inmates but added that capital punishment would remain on the books.

According to Granma — before the end of the VI Plenary of the Cuban Communist Party held yesterday — Raul Castro announced the proposal by the Politburo to celebrate the VI Party Congress in the final months of 2009. Full text of his speech in Spanish can be read here.

Also announced:

• Commander of the Revolution Ramiro Valdes, Salvador Valdes Mesa, and Army Corps General Alvaro Lopez Miera have been elected as members of the Politburo;

• José Ramón Fernández Álvarez (Vice-President, Council of Minister) and member of the revolutionary old guard will “attend, control, and coordinate”work on education;

• Commute death sentence of several prisoners to a life sentence;

• Politburo’s proposal to establish a Commission, with a reduced number of participants, to make more operational and functional the decision making process, which requires rapid attention and at the same time, permit a collective evaluation. The Commission will be comprised of Raúl Castro Ruz, José Ramón Machado Ventura, Juan Almeida Bosque, Abelardo Colomé Ibarra, Carlos Lage Dávila, Esteban Lazo Hernández y Julio Casas Regueiro, whom coincide with the president, first vice-president, and the vice-presidents of the Council of State;

• Plenary ratified the Politburo’s proposal to perfect Cadres Commission of the Central Committee of the Party as an instrument to fortify the control over the application of policy;

• Plenary also agreed to create seven permanent commissions subordinate to the Politburo, operationally overseen by the Central Committee Secretariat and presided in all cases by its secretary.

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