Cuba to consult expats on new constitution

>> HAVANA: Cuba announced on Friday that its citizens living abroad could participate in a public debate over planned changes to its 1976 constitution, a first for the communist-run country that for many years has excluded emigrants from domestic politics.

A draft proposal of changes to the constitution was passed last month by the National Assembly and will be debated by the public in 35,000 workplaces and community meetings in Cuba into November, before a final version is submitted to a referendum.

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 recognise 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).

Mr 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.

Mr 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.

During the Cold War, Cuba branded citizens who left the island as “traitors” and “worms”, especially if they lived in the United States, and they were rarely granted permission to return home, even for visits.

That began to change with the fall of the Soviet Union. Most Cubans living abroad are now considered to have economic motives and are welcome to come and go as they please.