Cuban Communist Party congress looks to future

[The Northerner]

HAVANA (Reuters) – Cuba's ruling Communist Party meets on Saturday for a congress expected to introduce possible future leaders and endorse groundbreaking economic reforms in what is one of the world's last one-party communist states.

The event, the most important since a Soviet-style system was formally adopted at the first party congress in 1975, could mark the beginning of the end of the long reign of leaders who have guided Cuba since the 1959 revolution and created the socialist model they now seek to preserve -- through reform.

The 1,000 delegates in attendance will approve some or all of nearly 300 reforms proposed by President Raul Castro to end Cuba's economic crisis by correcting past policy mistakes.

The changes, many already in place, include slashing the state workforce, subsidies and spending and a much greater opening to private enterprise, such as the right of small businesses to hire their own workers.

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20110413/pl_nm/us_cuba_congress