A Cuban deputy was at the center of one of the most revealing speeches of the Seventh Ordinary Period of Sessions of the National Assembly of People's Power (ANPP), held on July 29 and 30 at the Palace of Conventions in Havana.
Instead of proposing or debating agenda items, the representative Orlando Gutiérrez Boza used his time to persuade his colleagues that implementing capitalistic measures is, in fact, a revolutionary act.
The parliamentary session was convened to follow up on the package of 176 economic and social transformations approved on June 18, 2026, the largest set of reforms to the Cuban model in decades, which includes private banking, private currency exchange, the opening to foreign franchises, and the conversion of state enterprises into joint-stock companies.
"It is necessary to be objective, to do what needs to be done at this moment, which is to be revolutionary. In other words, all these measures, even if it seems otherwise, despite any nostalgia that may arise, or what someone said, or... No, no, the revolutionary who lived through this moment we are facing would do what we are doing," declared Gutiérrez Boza before the cameras of Canal Caribe.
The phrase summarizes the contradiction that permeates the regime: for decades it fought against capitalism as an ideological enemy, and now its own deputies must justify to the public why introducing it is an act of revolutionary fidelity.
The very Miguel Díaz-Canel, which represents the "continuity" of the so-called revolution and is the first secretary of the Communist Party, admitted in June that the reforms will incorporate "more elements of private ownership, private production, capitalism, and market," although he denied a "capitalist restoration".
On his part, Prime Minister Manuel Marrero Cruz insisted before the Assembly this Thursday that Cuba "does not deviate from the socialist model".
Gutiérrez Boza, a graduate in Medical Sciences, former deputy director of the Center for Neurosciences and representative of the People's Power, did not present any concrete legislative proposals.
The session was not the only one to offer moments of unsubstantial propaganda. The troubadour and Deputy Nelson Valdés Viera referred to Díaz-Canel as "our leader" and "a father" during Tuesday's event, and he also greeted Raúl Castro, who supposedly participated via videoconference.
This pattern is not new. The ANPP has been approving laws and agreements unanimously for decades, without any opposing votes or real debate, as Díaz-Canel himself acknowledged in July 2024, boasting about being that “rare dictatorship that the enemies of the revolution will never understand.”
What is indeed unprecedented is the magnitude of the contradiction the regime is trying to manage: a system that declares itself socialist while implementing reforms that its own leaders describe as capitalist, and that needs to convince its lawmakers —and through them, the population— that this is not only acceptable but revolutionary.
At the close of the session, 110 of the 121 measures scheduled for June and July had already been approved, representing a 90.9% progress that the Assembly ratified with no votes against.
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