Havana, Cuba.- The protagonism of the Cubans in the construction of the new Constitution of the Republic, proclaimed this Wednesday, refutes the attacks to its legitimacy, affirmed the first secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party, Raul Castro.

When he delivered the proclamation speech of the magna carta at the Convention Center, the leader denounced the attempts to question the text by the enemies of the Revolution.

After a broad constitutional exercise, those slanders vanish before the irrefutable fact of the massive support of the people, he said in the solemn session of the National Assembly of People’s Power.

Raul Castro recalled the process carried out to endow the island with a law of laws that he described as a daughter of its time and a reflection of the historical circumstances of the construction of Cuban society.

Before its approval in the Assembly, on December 22, and the categorical ratification of the magna carta in the referendum of last February 24, in which almost seven million people voted for Yes, the initiative went through a popular consultation, held from August 13 to November 15.

In that sense, he highlighted that around nine million Cubans participated in meetings in neighborhoods and centers of work and study, as well as in debates abroad, which resulted in thousands of proposals for modification, elimination or addition, half of them incorporated into the text by the parliamentary commission in charge of drafting.

According to the first secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party, the proclaimed Constitution – which comes into effect with its publication today in the Official Gazette of the Republic – responds to the supreme purpose of achieving an increasingly prosperous, sustainable, inclusive and participatory socialism.

He also stressed in the plenary session of the National Assembly that the new constitution reflects the aspirations of those who for more than 150 years have fought for a free, sovereign, independent and socially just country.

Raul Castro also dedicated his speech to establishing a position on issues that generate regional and global concern, particularly the escalation in the aggressiveness of the current administration in the White House.

In this regard, he warned about his hegemonic pretensions in Latin America and the Caribbean, where the United States is trying to impose the Monroe doctrine of domination.

In particular, he pointed to Washington’s determination to overthrow the Cuban and Venezuelan revolutions through economic asphyxiation.

On Venezuela, he reiterated the island’s support for the Bolivarian Revolution, President Nicolas Maduro and the civil-military union of his people amid the hostility of the United States.

We ratify from this Parliament the firm solidarity and support for Venezuela, he said.

In the case of Cuba, he affirmed that the largest of the Antilles is faithful to its vocation for peace and understanding, but at the same time does not fear imperial threats, translated into the tightening of the economic, commercial and financial blockade that has been in force for almost 60 years.

That vocation is accompanied by the unshakable determination to defend the sovereign right of Cubans to decide the future of the nation without foreign interference, he added.

According to the leader , the island faces the challenge of an eventual worsening of the economic situation, based on the actions of the United States aimed at suffocating it, such as those implicit in the Helms-Burton Act, which here qualify as a legal spawn due to its open call for regime change and its extraterritorial character.

However, he clarified that the actual times does not mean a return to the so-called special period that in the 1990s followed the collapse of the socialist camp in Eastern Europe, because the Cuban economy has another scenario, considering its diversification.

The leader summoned the largest of the Antilles to accelerate efforts for national production, particularly food production, to revise expenditures in order to suppress non-essential ones and to increase efficiency in the use of fuels.

The parliamentary session also included speeches by the president of the National Assembly of People’s Power, Esteban Lazo, and the president of the National Electoral Commission, Alina Balseiro, who presented a report with the results of the February 24 ratification referendum.

Lazo affirmed that the 9th Legislature of the Assembly had the honor of assuming the realization of the process that made possible the collective construction of the new Constitution, which, he explained, demonstrated the immensely majority commitment of a people in Revolution.

The deputy pointed out that the historic session motivates as a first thought the decision of the inhabitants of Cuba to give themselves a magna carta inspired by the heroism and patriotism of those who fought for a free, independent, sovereign, democratic country of social justice and human solidarity.

The proclamation took place the same day that 150 years ago the first Constitution of the Republic in Arms was approved in Guáimaro, province of Camagüey, in the midst of the struggle against Spanish colonialism.