Critical Analysis regarding Sunday’s Cuban Elections

Erasmo Calzadilla

Elecciones 2015. Illustration by Cubadebate.cu
Elecciones 2015. Illustration by Cubadebate.cu

HAVANA TIMES – This Sunday another election will take place on the island, and once again the people will decide who will be their representative at the neighborhood level (Precinct delegates).

At least that’s what the official discourse maintains. How far removed is this from reality?

In an attempt to understand where the catch is, I encountered an interesting work published by the magazine “Temas” [Topics]. Daniel Rafuls Pineda, the author, describes a series of issues that in his opinion impede citizen participation in the process of public decision-making. For those who are unable to access the magazine, let me summarize the ones I consider most critical:

  • The Presidents and Vice Presidents of the People’s Power municipal assemblies (City Councils) are chosen in a plenary session by the precinct delegates. Nevertheless, the candidates to these positions must first be nominated by select candidate commissions; the selection criteria are not made public, nor do the commissions reveal how many have voted for each one.
  • Even though theoretically the Cuban Communist Party can’t propose its own sympathizers, they exert a sizable indirect influence over the electoral process via the nominations of candidates at every level. The intervention of the PCC becomes more evident when the citizens demonstrate little spontaneous disposition to elect or be elected; or when the people select candidates without the due “revolutionary integration”; and during the process of formation of the provincial and national assemblies, which have an important role in decision-making.
  • The Cuban electoral system claims to be based on the popular and direct election of people chosen in the different neighborhoods, communities and residential zones.       Nonetheless, at the national and provincial levels the assembly incorporates delegates who were not directly chosen by the people; these compose over 50% of the members. [In this way if a movement driven by popular inspiration should ever occur, it could never reach a majority of the National Assembly because the Party controls the gate to that, with over 50% of its members.]
  • The delegates to the provincial and national People’s Power Assemblies that weren’t chosen by the community weren’t always promoted through a broad process organized from the grass roots by the institutions that they belong to. This occurs in the mass organizations, in the Communisty Party and in the Party youth organization, the UJC.
  • According to the Constitution, the National People’s Power Assembly is “the supreme organ of State power” that “represents and expresses the sovereign will of all the people.”       Nonetheless, the Council of State, which represents it between sessions, is the body that has had the greatest legislative incidence at a national level. It has sometimes even overturned laws approved by the National Assembly.
  • The Constitution recognizes that the sessions of the National People’s Power Assembly should be public unless the Assembly itself agrees to close them. Nonetheless, the meetings of their commissions are only occasionally made public, a fact that affects the credibility of these representatives in the eyes of those they represent.

This was a forceful essay and the magazine was very brave to publish it. If I had previously already thought about not voting, well now I have better arguments to back me up.

Notes:

 

Erasmo Calzadilla

Erasmo Calzadilla: I find it difficult to introduce myself in public. I've tried many times but it doesn’t flow. I’m more less how I appear in my posts, add some unpresentable qualities and stir; that should do for a first approach. If you want to dig a little deeper, ask me for an appointment and wait for a reply.

6 thoughts on “Critical Analysis regarding Sunday’s Cuban Elections”

  • It’s Castro hating! What’s wrong with you. Do you associate Castro with all things Cuban? It’s because of Castro that Cuba finds itself in the position it is in Today. If there was any doubt, just look at what their model did to Venezuela…HA!

  • Would I expect anything else from the cacophonous chorus of anti-Cuban synphants?! Especially attributing false motives, such as “hating the U.S.,” as one of my basic motivations. I love the U.S.; it is just that I don’t want it taken over by an oligarchical system, as is plainly the case now. I have read history and realize that the same process which destroyed what democracy existed in the Greek city states and the Roman Republic is now at work in our own country. Just as the Founding Fathers sought to prevent this process from occurring again through their system of checks-and-balances, (yet also, their mistrust of the passions of the masses), likewise, I seek to fight the process of degradation.

  • Sad but true.

  • The Castro supporters on this site don’t care. They are driven by two things

    1. Hate for the U. S.
    2. A belief that Communist socialism is the future.

    So they will support anything or anyone they feel advances the cause. Freedoms and the individual can be sacrificed as long as they advance the goals of communism

  • Thank you for that excellent summation of the Cuban electoral system, Erasmo.

    Clearly, politics in Cuba is closely controlled by the Castro regime. It is undemocratic and non-transparent.

  • I hope all those empty-headed Castro sycophants who extol the “virtues” of the Cuban electoral system will read this article. ….twice. It seems to address what honest observers of Cuban politics have known all along. Cuba is a dictatorship run by the Castros and there is no democracy for the Cuban people.

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