Final Results for Cuba’s Local Elections on Monday Afternoon
By Circles Robinson
HAVANA TIMES — The lead story today in Granma, the Communist Party newspaper that circulates throughout the island, is that President/General Raul Castro voted on Sunday. In reality nobody thought that he wouldn’t.
The elections for neighborhood representatives took place in a routine peaceful fashion and according to the authorities 82 percent of the eligible voters had cast their ballots by 5:00 p.m.
The final voter turnout figures will be made public today Monday at 3:00 p.m., said Alina Balseiro, president of the Electoral Commission.
In each of the over 12 thousand polling places residents could vote for their neighborhood “delegado”, charged with taking their problems and suggestions to the municipal and other authorities in search of solutions.
Numerous opponents of the Castro government tried to run for the delegate post but they were kept off the ballots. According to the election publicity, the act of voting signifies support for the current system of government, Fidel, Raul and its other leaders.
In the coming months some of the representatives with be seated on the Municipal Council and some will reach the National Assembly. In February or sooner, the top Communist Party organs will decide who is going to replace Raul Castro as president and the new National Assembly will then unanimously ratify that decision.
First Vice President Miguel Diaz Canel is the favorite to become the next president while Raul Castro is expected to remain a top the Communist Party, which is the real source of power in Cuba according to the 1976 Constitution.
When voting on Sunday, Diaz Canel said he expects the current socialist system to remain in place under any future presidents.
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Uuufff, Trump sucks. No argument there. But he is not the US and the entire country should not be judged as such.
You mention the words ‘disdain for democracy in the US’.
Allow me to explain something Mr P………
In the UK there are certain ultra right wing extremist groups.
We are talking about the type of people who rose to vile prominence in Italy, Germany and other countries in the 1920s and 1930s.
You are familiar with the concept as you are inflicted with the same types of groups in your country. In fact Fascism is an ever growing problem stateside.
These extremist groups in the UK (who have links with counterparts across the world including in the USA) like to put their video-filth on twitter.
Now it so transpires that a certain national leader has, in the last couple of days, re-tweeted these videos.
Was it the President of Cuba who re-tweeted those ultra-right wing videos?
No it was not Mr P.
It was president trump who re-tweeted those videos.
This prompted those same videos to be re-tweeted many millions of times across the globe.
Any so called democratic process which produces a dirty gutter rat leader who actively seeks to promote far right extremism is quite clearly worthy of a great deal of disdain.
Its not the President of Cuba who actively promotes far right extremism Mr P, it is the current president of the USA.
So the moral of the story is this:
Have a good look at at your own country’s lame and inadequate ‘democratic’ process before you criticise the democratic processes of others.
For your love of the Castro dictatorship and disdain for democracy in the US, it would seem logical that you would beat a path to live in Cuba. However, we both know that life in the US is easier and more productive, even for someone like you. You have never even visited Cuba, let alone live there. Your comments ring hollow on so many levels that I don’t know where to begin my criticisms. Your defense of the lack of freedom of dissidents to run as candidates is unintelligible. Cuban elections are a joke. To say otherwise is ignorance.
Oh Kennedy Earle Clarke you do get carried away into Cloud Cuckoo Land whilst luxuriating in your comfortable island home. Your talk of “proper housing” demonstrates yet again, your miserably poor knowledge of Cuba. Within our block, there are four (4) inhabited wooden shacks which shame the very purpose of the revolution and are primitive. Pigs squeal each morning from the pitiful little hovels attached to the shacks, cockerels start crowing at midnight and poor miserable dogs howl in response to each other.
Yes there is some new housing, built during the last three years for MININT goons.
The desire of the people of Cuba to have “liberty, respect for human rights, of freedom of the press and thought, of democracy. of liberty to select their own government” was denied by Fidel Castro. Only a fool would suggest otherwise as those desires were properly defined and recognised.
After living under the Batista Dictatorship for so many years, the people of Cuba decided that they wanted to be free to be educated, free to obtain FREE Medical ATTENTION, Proper Housing, the owners of the resources of the country, the ridding of the Criminal Mafia from the land and the cutting of the rope of USA total control over the country, the land, the natural resources and the people. Don;t mind you hear the naysayers and the lackeys of the USA proclaiming that the Castro Brothers are dictators. The Castro brothers left their comfort zone and fought for the right of the people to be free. It is well known that they who fight in the interest of the downtrodden of the Planet are always referred to as dictators while the finger pointers and the condemners, support the worst of the worst DICTATORS in the world.
Under the capitalistic form of SO- CALLED DEMOCRACY, where do you see little school children manning the booths where the votes are cast? This certainly does not and cannot happen in the USA, the Bastion of Democracy-THE Mighty DEFENDER of HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSES? What a sight to behold? Did you notice it dear reader of my post? Isn’t this a picture of REAL and TRUE DEMOCRACY? Havana Times is howling that the Counter-revolutionaries (dissidents) were not allowed to present candidates, but how can they present candidates when it is the people who present their chosen candidates and perfectly well know that these dissidents do not have the interest of the country and the people at heart; that they are lackeys of the USA and traitors to their own country?
By the way, how many of them are there in the country to make a significant impact? Please to supply the strength of their population H.T. so that your readers could judge for themselves if they are a force to be reckoned with!