There are no flashy TV ads or campaign signs spiked into front yards, and candidates definitely do not tour the island shaking hands and kissing babies. Elections in Cuba lack the hoopla they have in other countries, but authorities say they give people a voice in government and refute charges that the country is undemocratic. Critics call them a sham since voters cannot throw out the Communist Party long led by Cuban leader Fidel Castro and his brother, Cuban President Raul Castro.
A long, complicated and truly unique electoral process is under way on the island, with more than 8 million Cubans going to the polls this weekend for municipal elections. The process culminates in February, when national assembly legislators vote on who will occupy the presidency, a post held by Raul Castro since 2008.
The latest electoral exercise began last month, when Cubans met in common spaces, parks and buildings for neighborhood assemblies to choose the candidates in municipal elections. Those assemblies nominated 32,000 candidates, and each electoral district must have between two and eight names on the ballot.
Sheets of paper with terse biographies and photographs of the candidates were then taped up to strategically placed walls and windows in each neighborhood for residents to read. That is just about the only campaigning that is allowed.
Yesterday, Cubans were to cast ballots to choose among those candidates for municipal assemblies that administer local governments and relay complaints on issues such as potholes and housing, social and sports programs.
After the local elections, commissions elected by workers, farmers, youth, student and women’s groups then choose candidates for the national legislature, which eventually elects Cuba’s next president. Near-complete voter participation is expected. In 2007-2008, voter turnout was 96.8 percent.
The government says perennial high turnouts are a clear sign of support for the revolution. Dissidents say people vote out of fear that not doing so could get them in trouble. Polling places also turn into social gatherings for neighbors. Young students escort the elderly and the disabled to vote, and Cubans are reminded by state television, unions and women’s groups that casting a ballot is a patriotic duty.
The entire process is devoid of party slogans, ads or logos, since only one party is legal in Cuba, the Communist Party, and its job is to “guide” society and its politics rather than impose candidates, National Electoral Commission Secretary Ruben Perez said.
“Voting is free, not obligatory and secret,” he said. “Our system is totally transparent and we defend it like this. We think that it is very democratic. It is a different concept: no delegate represents any political interest, only society itself.”
While the Communist Party’s power and influence are enormous, candidates do not have to be party members.
However, those who do not usually come from allied groups, such as the Federation of Cuban Women and the neighborhood-watch Committees for the Defense of the Revolution.
The nomination assemblies also see heated debate and criticisms about local problems, such as slow police response, poor water supply and garbage pickup or unauthorized vending stands that block sidewalks.
However, it is rare, almost unheard of, for a candidate to be nominated against the party’s wishes, and there is no real electoral threat to the country’s rulers.
There are no direct elections for the presidency or for Communist Party leadership posts, which critics say hold real power in the country.
Dissidents have not been nominated when they tried in the past, and many boycott a system they consider illegitimate.
Thousands gathered across New Zealand yesterday to celebrate the signing of the country’s founding document and some called for an end to government policies that critics say erode the rights promised to the indigenous Maori population. As the sun rose on the dawn service at Waitangi where the Treaty of Waitangi was first signed between the British Crown and Maori chiefs in 1840, some community leaders called on the government to honor promises made 185 years ago. The call was repeated at peaceful rallies that drew several hundred people later in the day. “This government is attacking tangata whenua [indigenous people] on all
RIGHTS FEARS: A protester said Beijing would use the embassy to catch and send Hong Kongers to China, while a lawmaker said Chinese agents had threatened Britons Hundreds of demonstrators on Saturday protested at a site earmarked for Beijing’s controversial new embassy in London over human rights and security concerns. The new embassy — if approved by the British government — would be the “biggest Chinese embassy in Europe,” one lawmaker said earlier. Protester Iona Boswell, a 40-year-old social worker, said there was “no need for a mega embassy here” and that she believed it would be used to facilitate the “harassment of dissidents.” China has for several years been trying to relocate its embassy, currently in the British capital’s upmarket Marylebone district, to the sprawling historic site in the
‘IMPOSSIBLE’: The authors of the study, which was published in an environment journal, said that the findings appeared grim, but that honesty is necessary for change Holding long-term global warming to 2°C — the fallback target of the Paris climate accord — is now “impossible,” according to a new analysis published by leading scientists. Led by renowned climatologist James Hansen, the paper appears in the journal Environment: Science and Policy for Sustainable Development and concludes that Earth’s climate is more sensitive to rising greenhouse gas emissions than previously thought. Compounding the crisis, Hansen and colleagues argued, is a recent decline in sunlight-blocking aerosol pollution from the shipping industry, which had been mitigating some of the warming. An ambitious climate change scenario outlined by the UN’s climate
BACK TO BATTLE: North Korean soldiers have returned to the front lines in Russia’s Kursk region after earlier reports that Moscow had withdrawn them following heavy losses Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Friday pored over a once-classified map of vast deposits of rare earths and other critical minerals as part of a push to appeal to US President Donald Trump’s penchant for a deal. The US president, whose administration is pressing for a rapid end to Ukraine’s war with Russia, on Monday said he wanted Ukraine to supply the US with rare earths and other minerals in return for financially supporting its war effort. “If we are talking about a deal, then let’s do a deal, we are only for it,” Zelenskiy said, emphasizing Ukraine’s need for security guarantees
RSS