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About corruption in every sphere of the State, which we all hear about every day, not one word. No one asked what happens to the billions of dollars the government collects through taxing the remittances sent to their families by Cubans abroad; no one asked about the State monopolies in internal and external markets; nor about the exploitation of more than four million workers providing services in other countries, especially the thousands of doctors and specialists in different professions working abroad on State contracts; nor about the high taxes paid by the self-employed; nor the artists and athletes who sell their works or provide services outside the country; nor how the State benefits from other countries’ debt forgiveness.

However, Cuban State TV couldn’t avoid showing tiny bits of other speeches, where the delegates addressed the problems of low production, the absence of a wholesale market, and the permanence of the dual currency system, all elements related to State policies.

Of course, we don’t know it there were any speeches addressing the high prices of food and other widely consumed products, because if there were, they took care not to show it, and if there weren’t, it would demonstrate that the Assembly is very badly informed on economic issues, as president Raul Castro indicated in one of his reflections.

They broadcast no speech, if there was one, that commented on the report that 50% of potentially productive land continues to be covered with the invasive marabou weed and is in the hands of the State; or that of those who received land (via leasing and other arrangements) a good share of them have not been able to make it productive because of the number of obstacles the State throws in their way. Nor did they air any speeches about the laughable prices the State pays for the large share of farm production it claims, or that the State companies are often less productive than individual farmers and cooperatives, or that the State continues to pay miserable wages to its workers without adequate stimuli; or that all the processed food – chicken, pasta, oils, sauces, good quality beer, alcohol and others – is sold only through the military monopoly of the “Hard Currency Collection Stores” (as they are called) and in Cuban Convertible Pesos, which continue to trade at 1 for 25 of the measly Cuban pesos, the currency in which wages are paid.

If anyone commented about it, there was no broadcast saying that the State blocks non-state forms of production – as they call the private and cooperative economy – from receiving direct support, be it financing or equipment, from international organizations, as everything has to come through the Government and its system of companies.

Nor did we see any speeches about the high, abusive and absurd taxes the self-employed are subjected to, or that these people have to plow the earth, harvest it and move their supplies and goods in old transport equipment, the cost of maintenance of which is unfathomable and requires oil whose high prices have been maintained in the domestic market even though worldwide prices have dropped by more than half.

Nor is anything said about the impact of the increases in retail prices, the State’s refusal to let farmers sell their products directly in Havana, and forcing them to use markets concentrated on the outskirts, where they have to pay taxes and work through intermediaries to get their goods with the consequent increases in in the cost of transportation.

In what seemed like a direct allusion to his personal opposition to the policies approved by the Cuban Communist Party (PCC) at its 6^th Congress, President Raul Castro directed Marino Murillo, the national economic czar, to question whether some market formulas such as the law of supply and demand should continue to be applied in the marketing of farm products.

Murillo, raising his eyebrows behind his glasses, a gesture I don’t know if Raul was able to see but which was seen on television, said nothing in response. It is not difficult to imagine the thoughts passing through his brain, given that he studied economics. But he preferred not to speak, and he knows why.

Behind it all is the silent war of the bureaucracy against work that is independent of the State, which they label “non-state forms” to discriminate against it and exclude it. It is not a coincidence that the National Assembly, supposedly in charge of legislating, executing and financing (all at the same time) the Government’s plans, is filled with leaders of the PCC, with bureaucrats from the central administration and from provincial and municipal administrations, with high level officers from the Revolutionary Armed Forces (FAR) and the Ministry of the Interior (MININT), with leaders of the pro-government trade unions and other mass organizations controlled by the PCC.

The bureaucracy gathered there is the same one that was incapable of legislating and enforcing the Guidelines of the 6^th Congress of the PCC and, in addition, the one that mercilessly attacks the few measures that managed to get through. I don’t know if it was a coincidence: yesterday afternoon, the self-employed who work in Maestranza Park in Old Havana – toy sellers, photographers, children’s cart-ride providers, light tattoo artists, food vendors – some authorized and duly legalized and others not, were informed that “the Party and the Government” had decided they could no longer work there, without any further explanation.

There is no easy fix, gentlemen: this centralized political and economic statist model should be changed if we want this country to emerge from its current quagmire.

It is no secret that the economic and politically centralized state model imposed on Cuba in the name of socialism has failed all along the line. Its inability to fulfill its own agreements from the Sixth Congress of the Communist Party of Cuba is conclusive. The model isn’t even capable of implementing the modifications approved by its own party and leaders.

President Raul Castro says he will retire from the leadership of the government in 2018. With him, the fundamental base that has sustained the regime in power for more than half a century will also go: the glories of the attack on the Moncada Barracks, the yacht Granma bringing the revolutionaries back from Mexico, and the fight in the Sierra Maestra. And no matter how much those who come after want it, they will no longer have those credentials. And they cannot, not even if they carry its name, for the simple and sensible reason that they were not there, the test of authenticity imposed by the Castro brothers themselves. The Revolution was their source of power, but legitimacy is another thing altogether.

If, before finally retiring from the government, Raul Castro is not subject to a direct and secret popular vote, future generations will always be left with the doubt about whether the work of the Castro brothers was done with or without the support of the majority of the people.

If he were elected president, he could still retire and fulfill his promise to leave power, but leaving a vice president no longer tied to those glories but with legitimacy won at the ballot box. And if he doesn’t want to or can’t face elections, let the Cuban Communist Party candidate he supports and for whom he would openly campaign be submitted to a popular vote. The success or failure of their candidate would be that of the Castros.

But if their candidate is not submitted to such scrutiny, not only would the doubt about the true popular support for the Castros continue, but the legitimacy of the successor would always be in question, because he or she would not even have these glories, nor would they have been elected by popular vote.

As the leaders and the current high level bureaucracy of the Communist Party is convinced that they can always count on the support of the majority of Cubans, there should be no reason in the next elections not to elect the president and vice president of the republic by popular vote, along with the provincial governors and city mayors.

This would bring enormous benefits for the current government. In fact, if they were to initiate and develop in 2016 a process of democratization that implies a fundamental respect for Cubans’ human rights, such as freedom of expression, election and economic activity, and that establishes a new constitution and a new electoral law that enables truly democratic elections, what remains of the US blockade-embargo would be completely undermined, forcing its immediate repeal by the United States Congress.

This would be, in fact, a triumph of their government and would help them in democratic elections and could also contribute, depending on who wins the upcoming elections in the United States, to an expedited normalization of relations with that country.

Moreover, within a couple of years economic and political liberalization would generate rapid economic growth, slow the exodus of Cubans overseas, and make all Cubans feel free to express themselves, organize parties and associations, promote their political proposals, vote for whomever gives them real economic gains thrugh deploying their abilities of every kind, which would be visible at the time of the elections and could widely favor popular support for the government candidate, if he or she was in the vanguard of this democratization.

“You’re dreaming, Pedro Campos,” more than a few readers will comment. No, my friends, this is no dream. Nor are they hopes, though woe to anybody who does not have them! I am trying to bring some light to the path for the good of everyone. Whether they see it or not, that’s another thing. Some think that if there is openness, the opposition will erase the government. Not if the opening is truly democratic and authentic.

It is very clear that those who spearhead the process of democratization, now or later, are going to lead the country in the following years. The opposition did not bury Mikhail Gorbachev, it was the military conservatives. Here, I do not think any members of the military could do something similar. And the other thing that is clear to all Cubans is that this model of state capitalism disguised as socialism has no future. “This model doesn’t even work for us any more,” Fidel Castro himself said once, although later he “clarified” that he had been misinterpreted.

I imagine that no one will go down in history as the gravedigger of the Revolution, above all if it is the Revolution itself that makes possible the opening to full democratization and development of the country.