Cuba set to launch constitutional rewrite to reflect reforms

HAVANA (Reuters) – Cuba’s national assembly is set on Saturday to begin the long-awaited reform of its constitution to give legal backing to the Communist-run island’s economic and social opening while upholding the “irrevocable nature of socialism”.

The most salient point on the agenda of its extraordinary session is the approval of the commission that will draft what is expected to be the broadest update of the constitution since it was first adopted in 1976 during the Cold War.

Former President Raul Castro first announced the need for a new constitution in 2011 after embarking on a series of reforms cautiously opening up the economy to foreign investment and the private sector in order to make Cuban socialism sustainable.

Some clauses in the current constitution, such as one forbidding Cubans from “obtaining income that comes from exploiting the work of others”, are at odds with those changes.

“Cuba has to make substantial changes to the constitution that endorse private property, self employment and cooperatives as part of the Cuban economy,” said Julio Perez, a political analyst and former news editor at state-run Radio Habana.

“Politically, it will have to affirm that presidents will be elected for five years and can only can be re-elected for another five.”

Term and age limits are among the various measures to strengthen Cuba’s political institutions proposed by Castro, 86, who handed the presidency over to his 58-year old protege Miguel D