Breakdown of Cuba’s Latest “Elections”
By Pedro Pablo Morejon
HAVANA TIMES – “Voting” day is when many Cubans sign a ballot paper for some lawmakers they didn’t choose and who won’t do anything for them once in office because they don’t represent any positive change in their lives, much less for the country.
“Voting” which I put in quotes and with a question mark. A sham that the regime puts on to try and legitimize itself as a State where there is Rule of Law, at a time when it already lacks all credibility among our own society, as well as in international eyes.
I left home in the morning to sort out some problems. The normal, that’s what life is here, trying to fix problems and going on the hunt, like back in prehistoric times. I wasn’t able to sort anything out in the end.
I passed by an old sick man’s house. He brought up the elections. He told me he wouldn’t have gone to the polling place but he had no way out since they were going to bring the ballot paper to him because of his sickness.
“Be a rebel, take the ballot paper, open it up, spit in it, fold it up and tell them that’s your vote and go to hell,” I told him and he laughed.
On my way back, I ran into a friend’s mom, who said that she didn’t want to go and vote but she’d have to do it for her grandson, who is at university and she doesn’t want to cause him harm. Although she told me that the young man himself was reluctant about going to the polls. She said she was scared for him, because that’s how he becomes “flagged”.
Back in the neighborhood, I could make out a polling station they’d set up at the bodega ration store. Apart from the people working at the polling station, you couldn’t see a single soul. People were indifferent and I could tell lots of people weren’t going to go and vote. They’re losing their fear.
I kept walking and saw a July 26th flag up in a neighbor’s doorway, who has a son in the US who comes to visit her regularly.
She was living in hardship a long, long time ago. Not anymore, she’s built a beautiful home and is a proper lady now. A lady who is “revolutionary” when it’s convenient and a snitch.
I’ve known her ever since I was a kid, she always liked police officers and leaders, anyone with a bit of power within the system. I don’t know if she’s unaware of the fact I can’t stand her. Maybe she knows. I don’t care anyway; I don’t like to be a hypocrite.
When I got home, I found a piece of paper. I picked it up, it was a second summons to go and vote, which they’d slid under my door. I don’t know why.
My neighbor asked me if I’d gone to vote, to get on my nerves, but she was worried, her 12-year-old granddaughter didn’t go to help out at the polls and she couldn’t find a way to force her. Now, she needs a piece of paper from the polling station that says she participated to show at school.
I looked at the summons again and I scrunched it up like I did to the one before and threw it in the trash.