Raul Castro Reappears to Prepare for Cuban Communist Party 8th Congress

The former president wore his olive green suit and a surgical mask in the images on Primetime News. (Screen capture)

14ymedio biggerEFE (via 14ymedio) — The former president and leader of the ruling Communist Party of Cuba (PCC), Raúl Castro, led a meeting of the political organization in which the preparations for its VIII congress, scheduled for April 2021, were addressed, according to a report this Wednesday in the island’s state media.

State television showed images of the meeting — which began on Tuesday and ended yesterday — in which General Raúl Castro, 89, is seen wearing his traditional olive green military uniform and wearing a surgical mask.

The next congress of the PCC is scheduled between April 16 and 19, 2021, as decided last December by the Party’s Central Committee.

The last conclave of Cuban communists was held in April 2016, when Raúl Castro inherited from his brother Fidel (who retired from power 2006 and died in November 2016) the role as first secretary of the party.

In this VIII Congress, General Castro is expected to pass the leadership of the almighty PCC to the current president, Miguel Díaz-Canel.

This was announced by the youngest of the Castros in April 2018, during his last speech as Cuba’s president before the National Assembly and it will be the first time since its creation that a civilian has led the political organization.

Since leaving the Presidency, Raúl Castro has spaced his public appearances and it is expected that, with the withdrawal from his position at the head of the PCC, he will withdraw from public life, as did his brother, the late Fidel Castro (1926 -2016).

During the meeting of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the PCC, a proposal was also presented to update the plan of measures to confront the COVID-19 pandemic on the island, which so far has resulted in 5,898 cases and 123 deaths.

The agenda also included the analysis of several laws pending approval by the National Assembly, among them those relating to the president and vice president of the Republic, and other laws related to the revocation of those elected to the Organs of People’s Power and their organization and operation.

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