One-Third of Cuba’s PCC Central Committee is Hand Picked With No Process

One-Third of Cuba's PCC Central Committee is Hand Picked With No Process
/ 14ymedio, Reinaldo Escobar
Posted on April 8, 2016

14ymedio, Reinaldo Escobar, Havana, 8 April 2016 — In a country where,
under the fifth article of the Constitution, the Communist Party is "the
highest leading force of society and the State" members of the Central
Committee of that organization should be known by all citizens and, of
course, access to the highest authority should not be covered by any
veil of mystery.

However, only a few remember the last time there was a formal election
of the membership to this group, on 10 October 1997, just before the
closing of the 5th Party Congress. At that conclave 150 members were
elected. In the slightly more than 18 years since then, there have been
29 deaths and 36 separations, some of these latter as a result of
disciplinary sanctions and others because the militant ceased to hold,
for different reasons, the administrative or political post that
warranted their membership on the Central Committee. Currently, there
are only 42 members of that group of 150 remaining.

But the numbers still do not add up. The data presented here have been
amassed by Julio Aleaga Pesant, who has spent years organizing a
magnificent collection of names under the ambitious title: Who's Who in
Cuban Society? The analyst has had the patience to fight against the
government's secrecy and find all references in the national and
provincial press which mention a person's name with his or her position.

Clearly, Aleaga inherits the errors and imprecisions of those official
reports. Not all sanctions appear in the press and many die without an
obituary. This is why there are 43 doubtful cases without any notices,
at least in the last five years. They involve "compañeros" who ascended
to the highest partisan level because it was necessary to have the chief
of some sugarcane cutting brigade there, or the head of a municipal
bureau, or a member of an agricultural contingent. As the media never
focuses on their names, it is probable that in some of the cases we
don't know how to respond with exactitude regarding whether or not they
are members of the Party Central Committee, if they are still alive, and
if they remain in the country.

In these almost 18 years, 51 other Communists have joined the PCC
Central Committe, but in that time there has not been a formal process
of elections as God commands, i.e. as established in the statutes. Thus
names like Miguel Barnet, president of the National Union of Writers and
Artists of Cuba; Gladys Bejerano, who heads the Comptroller of the
Republic; Joaquin Bernal, newly-appointed Minister of Culture; Guillermo
Garcia, a commander of the Revolution who was elected at the First
Central Committee in 1965, but was not included in the elections of the
5th Congress.

None of them was proposed from the base; they did not come up from the
ranks.

New wine has been filling old wineskins without these nominations
involving the Party base, such that now a third of the members of the
highest decision-making body has been handpicked from above.

The Seventh Party Congress has before it the task of renewing the
Central Committee. Among the other things they will have to discuss the
controversial issue of age, as it is not healthy for any organization to
have in its membership individuals who do not have the physical ability
to spend at least 10 hours a day resolving problems.

Source: One-Third of Cuba's PCC Central Committee is Hand Picked With No
Process / 14ymedio, Reinaldo Escobar | Translating Cuba -
http://translatingcuba.com/one-third-of-cubas-pcc-central-committee-is-hand-picked-with-no-process-14ymedio-reinaldo-escobar/