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CUBA-POLITICS-CONSTITUTION-EXPATS
Cuba plans to consult expatriates on new constitution
HAVANA, Aug 4, 2018 (BSS/AFP) – Cuba plans to let its 1.4 million
expatriate citizens contribute to its new constitution, the first time
emigrants will have a say in the island’s affairs since the 1959 revolution.
The Caribbean nation’s parliament in July approved a new draft
constitution that will be submitted for citizens to debate from August 13 to
November 15. The current version was passed in 1976.
Residents abroad will be able to participate in the debate online from
September.
“This constitutes an unprecedented development in the history of the
revolution,” said Ernesto Soberon, who heads a directorate in the foreign
ministry dedicated to Cuban expatriates.
The results of the consultation, which will solicit the views of more than
eight million Cubans aged 16 and above on the island, will then be submitted
to a referendum before returning to parliament for final approval.
It will recognize for the first time the role of the market and private
sector in the island’s heavily controlled socialist economy, though under the
watchful eye of the Communist Party of Cuba (PCC).
Soberon said the debate would be open to all Cuban nationals living
abroad, but did not specify whether they would also be able to take place in
the referendum.
The government estimates there are 1.4 million Cubans living abroad across
120 countries, with most concentrated in the United States, Spain, Mexico,
and Colombia. The island itself is home to 11.2 million people.
Soberon dismissed the notion that anti-Castro expatriates could disrupt
the process. “At present, those that advocate the overthrow of the revolution
make-up only a small minority,” he said.
From 1959 to 1975, the government of the late Fidel Castro considered
Cubans who left the island “deserters” and “traitors.”
But the process of rapprochement with those that did not maintain a
hostile position against their government began in 1978, leading to several
meetings with representatives from the 1990s onward and the sending of
remittances.
According to the official newspaper Granma, Cuba will hold some 135,000
consultation assemblies during the debate period in workplaces, student
centers and neighborhoods.
BSS/AFP/SSS/0845 hrs