Havana Cuba. – The elections of 470 deputies to the National Assembly of People’s Power (ANPP) are being prepared for next March 26. They involve 200,000 people involved in 23,647 polling stations, which entails large expenses, which also include a dynamic test on March 19 and a lot of publicity, with the aim of demonstrating that democracy exists in Cuba. Ten million ballots, thousands of biographies and photos of the candidates are printed, when the production of school notebooks fell from 35 million in 2007 to 14 million in 2021, and books and pamphlets from 53 million to 17 million, according to the 2021 Statistical Yearbook.
During the month of February the “cradle of the Revolution” has been burning, without the top leaders appearing in Pinares de Mayarí. The candidates for deputies meet with their “constituents” to make themselves known, according to official information. They try to make them believe that their opinions will weigh on the decisions that they will adopt unanimously in the ANPP, but judging by the summaries of the meetings between deputies and “voters” broadcast on television, there have been many demands due to food shortages, inflation and changes in economic management.
All the candidates for deputies in the next elections demanded the “creative resistance of the heroic people” in support of the Revolution, blamed the speculators and thieves who will be persecuted, and the “blockade” of the United States for the current calamities. Among them is Vice President Alejandro Gil, executor of the Sorting Taskwho deepened the economic-financial catastrophe without making excuses or presenting solutions, beyond the hundreds of ineffective measures developed to date.
Cuba is suffering from the most serious economic crisis of its existence, without effective solutions on the part of the Government. In February, the national energy system collapsed four times from Cienfuegos to Guantanamo. There is no money to purchase fuels, raw materials or new thermoelectric plants; neither to replace obsolete industries, nor to alleviate the huge deficit in transporting people and cargo.
The health system is collapsing. The children are malnourished. Procuring food is a daily ordeal. The small quotas of the ration system are postponed or eliminated. This month it was only possible to have 2,090 tons of rice out of the 36,000 required. The sugar will be distributed according to the existing availability in the country; that is, what the power plants produce in the small harvest 2022-2023. As reported by the Ministry of Domestic Trade (MINCIN), deliveries of edible oil have also been delayed; while the industry will supposedly recover the production of compotes and coffee for delivery, also out of date, to the population.
Prices soar incessantly in the informal market, where a pound of rice oscillates between 120-150 pesos, a pound of sugar exceeds 280 pesos, a liter of oil reaches 1,000 pesos, and thirty eggs are worth 2,000.
The chicken, oil, mincemeat and detergent modules decrease in quantity and frequency of sale, in line with government liquidity and the arrival of ships from the United States and other places. The tubers, vegetables and fruits are very scarce and expensive, since the peasants are not willing to continue paying the high prices of the inputs sold by the Government, to which they must deliver the “state order” to sell the remainder at capped prices, without appreciable profits.
The new laws of the Macroeconomic Stabilization Program, announced by the Minister of Finance at the Round Table on January 16, seem to have stopped until the elections are over, to prevent abstention, rejection or blank votes from continuing to gain ground, as occurred in the November municipal elections . Another possibility is that adjustments are being made within the framework of the intergovernmental commission created with Russia.
The term “Planglossian”, used in the title of this column, is derived from Pangloss, a character in the formidable novelCandide or Optimism
by the French writer Voltaire (1694-1778).
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