The “Elections” Over, Trash Piles Up in the Streets of Cuba
By Juan Diego Rodríguez (14ymedio)
HAVANA TIMES – The cleanup of the streets of Havana did not last long. One the day before the voting for the National Assembly of People’s Power last Sunday, a battalion of state workers collected the filth that usually accumulates on the corners due to the lack of means of all kinds.
The idea was to encourage a positive opinion of the authorities so people would vote for the 470 candidates approved by the Communist Party to fill 470 seats in the National Assembly.
It’s barely Wednesday, three days later, and the garbage is already limitless. On Espada Street on the corner with Callejón de Hamel, in Centro Habana, the waste not only overflows three containers, but also spreads over the ground across more than twice the space occupied by those containers. “You can see that the voting is over,” an old woman murmured sarcastically as she passed in front of it, covering her mouth and nose and crossing the sidewalk.
The “operation” prior to the opening of the polls – whose official results are viewed with suspicion by the citizens who observed the almost empty polling stations throughout that day – was repeated in different cities throughout the Island and included food sales in parks and squares and the absence of power cuts.
Three days after what some international organizations have called the “most irregular” elections in the history of Cuba, garbage, shortages, and blackouts return.
Translated by Translating Cuba
—–