They did not elect me president

to restore capitalism in Cuba or to surrender the revolution.

I was elected

to defend, maintain and continue perfecting socialism, not to destroy it

• Speech given by General of the Army Raúl Castro Ruz, president of the Councils of State and Ministers, during the 3rd ordinary session of the 7th Legislature of the National Assembly of People’s Power, at the International Conference Center, on August 1, 2009, "Year of the 50th anniversary of the triumph of the Revolution."

Compañeras and compañeros:
We have had days of intense work. On July 26, in Holguín, I explained that my remarks would be very brief, considering that questions of greater complexity were be debated thoroughly in different meetings throughout the week.

We dedicated the entire day on the 29th to holding the 7th Plenum of the Central Committee of the Party, with its Political Bureau and Secretariat, with the participation, as guests, of the members of the Council of State and the Council of Ministers; in other words, the main leaders of the Party, state, and government and the central cadres of the mass organizations, representing the rest of society. Further on, I will refer to some of the questions addressed in the plenum, although a brief report was published in our press yesterday.

Likewise, the next day there was an ordinary meeting of the Council of Ministers, which approved the second adjustment to expenditure for this year and a set of agreements to deal with the tense financial situation our economy is experiencing.

Also during the week, there have been meetings of the National Assembly commissions, in which deputies received detailed information and discussed developments in every area of activity in the country. Today, in this plenary session, we have analyzed and decided on other important issues.

The laws for the National Museum System and the Comptroller General of the Republic were passed, preceded by an extensive process of information, analysis and the reconciliation of different opinions on every level.

The first, the National Museum System Law, is an indispensable instrument for preserving our historical and cultural heritage for the present and future generations.

For its part, the Comptroller General of the Republic Law created a state agency that replaces the current Ministry of Auditing and Control, with the goal of aiding the National Assembly and the Council of State in implementing the constitutional mandate of exercising oversight of all state and government bodies.

This institution will play an essential role in increasing order, economic discipline, internal control and a resolute response to any manifestation of corruption, as well as causes and conditions that could propitiate negligent or criminal conduct on the part of any leader or official.
It will contribute to purging of administrative and criminal responsibility both the direct perpetrators of crimes and the secondary ones, which latter are, as the law itself defines, cadres, leaders or administrative officials who, because of a lack of exigency, negligent conduct or failure to observe established controls, help bring about violations of discipline or do not immediately confront and report them.

The Assembly has just elected as Comptroller General Deputy Gladys Bejerano Portela, who will receive my fullest support in carrying out her duties, and above all, I will require her to do so to the letter.

Likewise, we will be paying attention — both the Party and the government — so that leaders in other offices act with the same conscientiousness.

These are questions that are always essential, and even more so at this time.

A YEAR OF DIFFICULT CHALLENGES

During the last Assembly session in December, I warned that the year 2009 would pose a difficult challenge to the Cuban people following the $10 billion in losses and damages caused by three devastating hurricanes. The first, Gustav, began to affect us on August 30, and the third, Paloma, caused destruction until November 9. That is, in just 72 days, approximately 20% of our gross domestic product — the famous GDP — was lost. In addition to that, there was the uncertainty implied by the economic and financial crisis on a global scale, and its inevitable impact on our economy.

We thought at the time that we would have a 6% (economic) growth; by April, when we saw ourselves obliged to make the first adjustment to the plan, we lowered our expectations to 2.5%, and we have confirmed that in the first semester, GDP growth has been 0.8%. Despite that, we estimate that we will finish the year at about 1.7%.

Our exports have significantly diminished due to falling prices. Nickel, for example, has dropped from being sold at an average price of $21,100 per ton last year to $11,700 in the first semester. In the first months of the year, it was even lower, and we reached the point of proposing a temporary shutdown of certain nickel plants.

Tourism is facing a paradox in that, despite having received 2.9% more visitors to date this year, income was reduced due to a deterioration in the exchange rate between the U.S. dollar and the other principal currencies. In short, more tourists, but less income.

The value of our imports has also dropped, to a greater extent, which has propitiated an almost restored trade balance, but the accumulated effect of prior commitments and additional difficulties in accessing sources of financing have made the country’s financial situation even more complicated.

Despite our firm desire to honor every obligation, we have been forced to renegotiate debts, payments and other commitments with foreign entities, something quite common these days all over the world. As a rule, we have found understanding and confidence in our partners, to whom we now reaffirm our recognition and the security that we will meet the agreements reached.
At the same time, new procedures have been recently put in place to facilitate transactions with other countries, which likewise means increasing discipline and control over these matters.

NOBODY CAN SPEND MORE THAN HE EARNS

We have been consistent on the need to adjust spending to income. I am not an economist, nor has it been my task during these years of the Revolution to dedicate myself to the details of economic development, but I am basing myself on the logic that — as I said in the last session of Parliament — nobody, no individual nor country, can indefinitely spend more than s/he earns. Two plus two always adds up to four, never five. Today I would add, as I said three days ago in the Central Committee Plenum, that within the conditions of our imperfect socialism, due to our own shortcomings, two plus two often adds up to three.

We are now immersed in drafting next year’s budget, the guidelines of which have been approved by the Council of Ministers. I will mention two of them: planning the balance of payments without a deficit and even with a reserve in order to be able to deal with unforeseen circumstances; and the other, to ensure integrally and give absolute priority to growth in production and services that contribute hard currency income.

This is the line that we agreed in the 7th Plenum and which it is up to all of the institutions to implement, under the authority of the Ministry of Economy and Planning, an important body of central state administration, and which we are all obliged to help, support and above all comply with.

Over the present year, we will continue taking diverse measures to strengthen our institutionalism and the functioning of the government and the state. Four new vice presidents of the Council of Ministers have been appointed, which together with the two existing ones, have assumed attending to ministries, national institutions and important development programs. That was followed by the restructuring of the state apparatus, with the merger of several central state administration agencies and other entities, and the consequent reduction in expenditure, transport and staff, not to mention unnecessary paperwork. This process will continue gradually, with the goal of increasing government efficiency. There is growing cohesion and harmonious, integrated work by the collective agencies of the Party, state and government leadership.

DESPITE THE EXISTING TENSIONS, MODEST AVANCES CAN BE SEEN

Despite existing tensions in our economy, modest advances can be seen. The internal currency balance is showing one of the most favorable situations in the last 20 years. Prices, while high, remain stable. In addition, more people have joined the workforce. With some exceptions, there is increased production in agriculture and industry and transport as a whole, and social services are guaranteed for our population, particularly health, education and cultural and artistic activities.

In terms of health — not without shortcomings of which we are aware — we have given an irrefutable demonstration of our ability to face epidemics of every type.
We are one of the few countries in the world that can say it has the A H1N1 virus under control. For example, as of last night, as this disease spreads uncontrollably in more than 171 nations and as these same nations report to the World Health Organization, more than 177,000 people have been infected and more than 1,100 have died.

In Cuba, 242 cases have been confirmed, of which 135, more than half, are imported — in other words, sick people who traveled to the island; 50 are introduced – individuals infected by sick people from outside the country – and 57 are categorized as autochthonous, having been infected here by introduced cases. Of that total, 232 have been released from hospital and the remaining 10 are evolving favorably. Thus far, we have not had to regret complications or any deaths. It is an achievement of the health system developed by the Revolution, and moreover an example of how, when the necessary arguments are put forward, the required organizational methods are adopted with the participation of the entire people, and there is exigency, there are results.

WE CALL ON OUR PEOPLE TO CONSERVE AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE

Others can be mentioned, such as the fact that to date, the population has been spared irritating power outages stemming from generating shortfalls, aside from those caused by maintenance work on the electricity distribution networks or other causes.

That would have been impossible to achieve without the strategy charted by compañero Fidel and subsequent measures for electric power generation and conservation.
As it is known, in the first months of the year, demand rose much higher than planned consumption, in circumstances in which it was impossible to import more fuel. The decisions implemented turned the situation around in June, although in July the results were not so positive. It would seem that the initial impetus is now fading, as tends to happen, and that it is a defect that is quite typical of many of our cadres and functionaries. Rigor on this crucial question must be increased for the rest of the year and for the future. It is very simple; there is no alternative but to adjust strictly to the plan.

Exceptional measures have been taken, such as cutting off service to certain entities for having exceeded planned consumption, with the consequent effects, and also, a number of filchers have been fined for committing fraud with the meters in their homes. I warn the latter that very severe actions will be taken, including the cutoff of electricity to repeat violators for long periods and even definitively, if it should come to that.

While we have managed to halt increasing electricity usage in the state sector, it has continued to rise in the residential sector. Without ignoring the high temperatures of these months, the fact that we are in the middle of the summer vacation period, and other objective reasons, but aware that reserves exist, we are calling on our people to conserve as much as possible. It is up to the mass organizations in the neighborhoods to play a greater role in this context under the leadership of the Party, with rational and adequately coordinated actions, convincing the people.

SOCIAL EXPENDITURE SHOULD BE IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE REAL POSSIBILITIES

There are many needs and we have to know how to prioritize the principal ones. Their solution will depend on us working more and better. What we do need to definitively root out is the irresponsible attitude of consuming without anybody, or very few people, worrying about how much it costs the country to guarantee that, and above all, if it can really do so.

We know how terrible it is, for example, to lack housing, but as I have said on more than one occasion, solving that problem is not a question of desire; it requires time, resources and above all work. It becomes more difficult if there are not enough construction workers, as is generally the case.

In fact, in some provinces there are not even enough people willing to be teachers or police officers, or to do other work that requires particular dedication or physical effort. I referred to this issue in the previous session of the Assembly, and I have been and will be following how each province is progressing on incorporating its population into these tasks.

It is a matter for which solutions adjusted to reality are required, in addition to appealing to the people’s honor, which is also important.

In the education sector, more than 7,800 retirees have gone back to the classrooms, and another 7,000 have postponed their retirement. Taking together teachers who desisted from resigning and others who came back to teaching, we will have close 19,000 more teachers in the coming school year. I am sure that the example set by these compañeras and compañeros will contribute to that same behavior being followed by many who have not yet done so, and moreover to those who are reaching retirement age to stay on — if that is possible — in their posts for longer, a little bit longer, receiving their corresponding pensions in addition to their salary. It is already a considerable figure.

As it is known, a modest salary increase was recently approved for that sector. We would have liked it to be higher, and — as we intended — to pay our teachers and professors more fairly for their efforts; however, after thoroughly studying the matter, this was what was possible to approve in the current situation, and that is how it has been appreciated by these selfless workers.

Social expenditure should be in accordance with real possibilities, and that means cutting those it is possible to do without. They may be beneficial and even praiseworthy activities, but they are simply not affordable.

In that context, methods are being studied to reduce the number of full-time boarders and students who eat lunch at school at all levels of education. For example, there are pre-university schools and secondary schools in the countryside in places where their participation in agricultural work is no longer needed, and most of whose student bodies come from urban areas. These institutions will be gradually transferred to the city as the material and organizational conditions are ensured.

It is a decision in the interest of greater savings in considerable education spending, without affecting quality, that moreover will save some 5,000 teachers long hours of daily transportation to and from their homes, and will increase the role of families in the education of their children. Nevertheless, some schools with boarders will always be needed in rural areas.
Another area in which solid steps have been taken is reconciling the positions available in schools with current requirements and prospects for socioeconomic development in each province.
With a similar sense of rationality, other decisions will be implemented in education, public health care and the rest of the budgeted sector, aimed at eliminating spending that is simply unsustainable, that has grown from year to year and which moreover, is not very effective, or even worse, is making some people feel that they have no need to work.

It was under that concept that multiple jobs were authorized, as an alternative for making better use of workers’ potential and as a means of increasing their income. This includes students of working age, a practice common throughout the world, which in addition to satisfying personal needs, contributes to better preparing them professionally and above all for life.
Limitations need to be known, not to be afraid of them or to hold them up as a pretext for doing nothing, but to determine which are the best alternatives and dedicate ourselves to putting them into practice.

INCORPORATING THE LARGEST NUMBER OF PEOPLE INTO FOOD PRODUCTION

Last July 26, I talked about the results of milk distribution and the distribution of idle land, and I mentioned the urgency of using land surrounding almost all towns and cities as intensively as possible.

The first experience began in the city of Camagüey. All entities and agencies are participating, under the leadership of the provincial government, based on their own resources and with extensive utilization of animal traction. This coming January, the plan is to extend that experience to the municipal capital of every province.

We have designated this program suburban agriculture. It will be developed on land surrounding cities and towns, to a distance allowing inhabitants to work there with the least volume of fuel spent on transportation.

It was decided to entrust the Ministry of Agriculture with this task, specifically, Deputy Adolfo Rodríguez Nodal and his small working group, who have obtained outstanding results in urban agriculture, the fruit of exigency and being systematic, expressed in the four tests to which every province and municipality in the country are annually subjected.

In this program, we forget about tractors and fuel; even if we had them in sufficient numbers, the concept is to carry it out essentially with oxen, because these are small farms, just like a growing number of producers are doing with excellent results. I have visited some, and was able to see for myself that they have transformed the land they are working into veritable gardens, where every square foot of the land is being used.

Work is also under way to improve the collection and distribution system for agricultural products via an integral concept. As the press has reported, it is being applied in the two Havana provinces, even with the many and longstanding and thus entrenched problems, just like the bureaucracy that has managed this activity for so long, and, depending on the results, the necessary adjustments will be made and will be generalized throughout the rest of the country. At this point in time, engines have been replaced in 145 old trucks that came out of the garage rejuvenated and will be dedicated to supplying the capital. The same is to happen immediately with another 55 trucks, for a total of 200.

That is the spirit with which it is necessary to work, not only in agriculture, but in every productive activity or service that brings in income for the nation or replaces imports.
Strategic tasks like food production, which we have indicated is a national security issue, require us to continue adding the greatest possible number of people, via every existing form of property and with the required order.

We can count on many university graduates, in some specialties far over and above our necessities, but if we are not able to change mentalities and create the objective and subjective conditions that ensure opportune availability of a skilled workforce, who will attend to the land? Who will work in the factories and workshops? Who, in the end, will create the material wealth that our people need? Sometimes one has the sensation that we are eating socialism before building it, and aspiring to spend as though we were in communism.

THIS SMALL ISLAND’S PRESTIGE IS GROWING

Moving on to another subject, the seven months that have gone by this year have been witness to Cuba’s outstanding international role. Even our staunchest enemies cannot deny that this small island’s prestige is growing.

We have just handed over the presidency of the Non-Aligned Movement to Egypt, a movement that, in the opinion of its member states, under Cuba’s leadership, has been revitalized and has greater unity and influence in the most diverse world forums in the last three years,.
The peoples and governments of Latin America and the Caribbean, giving yet further evidence of the profound changes that have occurred over the last 50 years since the triumph of the Revolution, in which attempts to isolate us in this hemisphere have failed, unanimously demanded, with renewed strength, the lifting of the U.S. blockade at the Summit of the Americas in Port of Spain.

It was a resounding victory won by the ALBA and the entire region in San Pedro Sula, Republic of Honduras, when, overcoming the opposition of the United States, it was decided to eliminate, without any conditions whatsoever, the anachronistic exclusion of Cuba from the Organization of American States, which, I reiterate once again, we do not have the slightest intention of joining, for obvious reasons known by all of you.

Cuba participates actively in the different integration mechanisms that exist in the region. Its entry into the Rio Group as a full member last December was a highly significant event.
Our political and economic relations with Venezuela and with the rest of the nations of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America, as well as with other countries in the region and the rest of the world, are progressing in a sustained, firm manner. The ALBA, a forum of integration and solidarity, is being consolidated, and in turn, is beginning to coming under attack from imperialism.

This Assembly has just adopted a declaration on Honduras. Cuba has firmly condemned the coup d’état in that country; has resolutely supported the immediate and unconditional restitution of the legitimate president, and has expressed its solidarity with that sister nation. What is happening in Honduras is decisive to the future of Our America. The Honduran people will have the last word.

I WAS ELECTED TO DEFEND, MAINTAIN AND CONTINUE PERFECTING SOCIALISM, NOT TO DESTROY IT

Despite the economic and financial difficulties, we have honored our moral commitment in terms of international cooperation and solidarity.

The two Central American nations which did not yet have diplomatic relations with us established them in the last few months.

It would be fitting to ask what country is isolated in this region; it does not seem to be Cuba.
We have attentively observed the attitude of the new U.S. government toward our nation. If we adhere strictly to the facts, the essential thing is that the economic, commercial and financial blockade remains intact and fully implemented, as seen by the persecution of our transactions with third countries and the growing fines levied on U.S. companies and their foreign subsidiaries. Likewise, Cuba continues to be unjustly included on the list of state sponsors of international terrorism annually issued by the State Department.

The positive but minimal measures announced last April 13 on the eve of the Summit of the Americas, in response to the anti-blockade clamor of the entire continent, which ended the restrictions on travel by Cubans resident in that country and remittances to their families, and which would likewise permit certain operations in terms of telecommunications, have not been implemented as of yet. It is important for this to be known, because there is quite a bit of confusion and manipulation in the international media on the matter.

It is true that the aggressiveness and anti-Cuban rhetoric of the U.S. administration has diminished, and after six years of suspension due to Bush’s decision, talks between the two governments on the migration issue were renewed this past July 14, and took place in a serious and constructive way. Cuba reiterated that it would continue to scrupulously comply — as it has until now — with the migration accords, and denounced the encouragement of illegal departures and human smuggling implied by the Cuban Adjustment Act and the wet-foot/dry-foot policy applied by the U.S. government.

Several weeks ago, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton stated that “…We are opening a dialogue with Cuba, but we are very clear about wanting to see fundamental changes in the Cuban regime,” she concluded.

I feel myself obliged, with all due respect, to respond to Mrs. Clinton and, by the way, to those in the European Union who are demanding unilateral gestures from us in the direction of dismantling our political and social regime.

They didn’t elect me president to restore capitalism in Cuba or to surrender the Revolution. I was elected to defend, maintain and continue perfecting socialism, not to destroy it (prolonged applause).

This is something that should be made very clear, because it represents the determined will of the Cuban people, after they approved, in a referendum in 1976, by the direct and secret ballot of 97.7% of voters, the Constitution of the Republic, which in its first article says, “Cuba is a Socialist State of workers, independent and sovereign, organized with all and for the good of all, as a unified and democratic republic, for the enjoyment of political freedom, social justice, individual and collective well-being and human solidarity.”

And more recently, in the year 2002, concretely between June 15 and 18, 8,198,237 citizens, almost the entire voting-age population, signed the request to this Assembly to promote the constitutional reform ratifying the Constitution of the Republic in all of its parts, and declared irrevocable the socialist nature and the political and social system contained within our fundamental law, which was approved unanimously by the deputies of the National Assembly in an extraordinary session held on the 24th, 25th, and 26th of June of that same year.

I am using this opportunity to reiterate Cuba’s disposition to hold a respectful dialogue with the United States, between equals, without any shadow over our independence, sovereignty or self-determination. We are ready to talk about everything, I repeat, everything, but about here, about Cuba, and about there, about the United States, not to negotiate our political and social system. We are not asking the United States to do so. We must mutually respect our differences.
We do not recognize the government of that country, of any other, or of any group of states, as having jurisdiction over our sovereign affairs.

In Cuba, since the triumph of the Revolution, there has not being a single extrajudicial execution, or disappearances, or torture. I correct myself; there has been torture, but on the Guantánamo naval base, imposed on our country for more than 100 years by the despicable Platt Amendment approved in the United States Congress as a condition for the cessation of yanki military occupation.

There has been torture there, and that is part of Cuba’s territory, although we did not engage in it. That is why we say, with all due respect, to Mrs. Hillary Clinton, secretary of state of that country, that if there is a desire to talk about everything, let’s talk about everything, about here, but about there, too.

The closure of the U.S. prison in Guantánamo has been announced; it is a just demand of world public opinion, but the matter should not end there. We do not renounce nor will we ever renounce the unconditional return of that piece of our national territory.

Just as we have repeated our willingness to resolve our conflict with the United States, I clarify that we are facing this matter with absolute serenity and without any haste whatsoever. We have been walking on a knife’s edge for 50 years; we are well trained in that, and we are capable of resisting another 50 years of aggression and blockades. (Applause)

THE GENERATIONS TO FOLLOW WILL NEVER BE DISARMED IDEOLOGICALLY

There are those in U.S. ruling circles who say that they will wait for the disappearance of the Revolution’s historic generation, a sinister bet on the so-called “biological factor,” or the death of Fidel and all of us, which is the same thing.

Those who think like that are doomed to failure because the generations of revolutionary patriots who will follow us, in the first place our magnificent youth, will never be disarmed ideologically, and together with them and the Party, the Mambises of the 21st century will always be on the front lines: our glorious Revolutionary Armed Forces, which were capable this time of victoriously entering Santiago de Cuba on the 1st of January of 1959, with their Commander in Chief in the lead. (Applause)

I did not mention the Ministry of the Interior because it had not yet been created when we entered Santiago de Cuba; moreover, we consider it to be within the same family and with the same objectives.

Our five heroes are an eloquent example of that attitude, imprisoned for the last 11 years in the United States for combating terrorist plans against Cuba. The worldwide movement for their freedom continues to grow, and this Assembly agreed today on an appeal to the parliaments and peoples of the world, denouncing this injustice. From here, we send a strong embrace to Gerardo, Ramón, Antonio, Fernando and René, and express to them our admiration for their unbreakable determination, which is now a symbol of the Cuban Revolution. (Applause).

IT MUST BE THE PEOPLE, WITH THEIR PARTY IN THE VANGUARD, WHO DECIDE

I have one other substantial matter to address, and which was published yesterday in our press. The 7th Plenum of the Central Committee agreed to postpone the 7th Congress of the Party, which was planned for the end of this year.

The task that we Cuban communists and all our people have ahead of us is large; it is a question of defining, with the broadest popular participation, the socialist society to which we aspire and can build in Cuba’s present and future conditions, the economic model that will guide the life of the nation to the benefit of our compatriots and ensure the irreversibility of the country’s sociopolitical regime, its only guarantee for real independence.

You can understand the magnitude of the studies under way, which cover the principal aspects of national life in the midst of the pressing questions and tensions associated with the economic situation.

That includes, among other matters, the complex process of monetary unification to get rid of the dual currency system — which was necessary to establish at a given time — the elimination of gratuities, with the exception of those established in the Constitution, and of unjustified subsidies; the system of wage payment based on the socialist principle, “From each according to his ability, to each according to his labor.”

A formal congress that does not discuss in depth these strategic issues and dictate guidelines for the future would have no sense or content. In other words, compañeros, it is a Herculean task, identifying the principal problems as such, and this will necessarily take us a while longer.
As approved in the 7th Plenum of the Central Committee and explained in the note published yesterday, first it is necessary to conclude the preparation of the entire Party, and then to discuss with the population as a whole and only then to hold the Congress, when that great process has been completed. That is the real congress, in which all of the problems are discussed with the communists and with all of the people.

If we want to hold a real Congress, in a situation like the present, finding solutions for problems and looking toward the future, it must be like that. It must be the people, with its Party in the vanguard, that decides.

In 50 years of Revolution, in terms of consulting with the people, we have sufficient experience. The most recent, on a national level, was the process of analyzing the speech of the 26th of July of 2007 in Camagüey. The months of September and October were dedicated to discussing it at the grassroots level, without being limited to the issues contained in that speech, and the population was encouraged to express itself on any subject of interest, information that has been very useful for the subsequent work of the country’s leadership. In November of that year, work was done to collect the information and to draw up a summary, and in December of that same year, we discussed the final report in the Party. The study meetings were attended by more than 5.1 million people, who made 3,255,000 comments, with 1,301,203 concrete proposals, of which 48.8% were critical. The outcome of that activity was not thrown into a bottomless pit.
The most recurrent referred to food production, the irrevocable decision to build socialism, the replacement of imports, increasing production, the economic and social situation, the concept of not spending more than what is taken in, the manifestations of corruption and criminal activities, defense preparation and the role of political and administrative cadres. As you can see, they are subjects very much linked to the content of the Congress and to the country’s future. I should clarify now that the process was conceived of as a rehearsal, thinking about this maximum Party event.

Its postponement does not at all mean paralyzing its preparation; on the contrary, this decision implies the need to take urgent steps, such as the renewal of the Party’s highest leadership bodies.

The current Central Committee is made up of magnificent comrades, but many of them are not carrying out the responsibilities they held when they were elected 12 years ago, for a period that is supposed to be five (years), and which as been prolonged due to the accumulated delay in holding the Congress.

Article 46 of the Party’s statues establishes, “In the period between one congress and the next, the Central Committee may convene a National Conference to address important issues of Party policy. The National Conference is authorized to incorporate new members into the body and to separate or liberate from its ranks those it considers convenient to do so. The number of participants, the way they are elected and the norms for preparing and carrying out the National Conference are established by the Political Bureau.”

In line with this article, the 7th Plenum decided to convene a National Conference, fundamentally to elect new leadership bodies; in other words, the Central Committee, the Political Bureau and the Secretariat, which are responsible for continuing and completing preparations for the Congress. It is an event that we have not implemented previously, and that we can organize in a relatively brief period of time, and that is what we will do.
Ever since that January 1st, in 1959, it has been the unwavering line to analyze with the people every important problem, no matter how difficult it is. If we have survived all of the difficulties and aggression for half a century, it has been because the Revolution is the work of the immense majority of the Cuban people.

Firmly united, we will be consistent with the legacy of our people’s long history of struggle, Fidel’s teachings and our eternal commitment to the fallen.

Thank you very much.