Is Cuba on the verge of major political reform? - WAPO

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2015/03/05/is-cuba-on-the-verge-of-major-political-reform/

HAVANA — An online forum published in Cuban state media this week offers the most intriguing sign to date that communist authorities may be preparing to make significant changes to the one-party system Fidel and Raul Castro have controlled for 55 years.

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There were several queries like this: "I'd like to know if the possibility of a direct vote for the top leadership positions in the country is under consideration," asked reader "GCR," who added that "the current system is (in my view) highly unpopular."

President Raúl Castro has set the next Communist Party Congress for April 2016, and the events are typically the occasion for reform announcements. With Castro, 83, saying he'll step down in 2018, next year's meeting would, in theory, set the stage for the formal transition to a post-Castro era.

Next in line to succeed Castro is Cuba's first vice president, Miguel Diaz-Canel, 54.

Under the existing, complicated electoral system, Cubans vote among pre-screened parliamentary delegates who in turn elect the government's top executives, with a Castro always at the helm. There are no political parties, no public debates and no dissenting views. No other political model in the hemisphere is so rigid.