MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay, APRIL 7 (IPS) – The uncertainty that was the hallmark of a democratic election did not appear on March 26, the day the Cuban people were summoned to appoint members member of the National Assembly of People’s Power, the country’s legislative body. one vote happened that day – people went to the polls and cast their ballots in the bin. But is this really an election? Cubans cannot choose their representatives – their only options are to either approve those chosen to stand or abstain.
If each seat already has a designated winner, why hold an election? Why do people waste their Sundays queuing to vote? And why should the government care so much if they don’t?
Vote, Cuban style
According to its constitution, Cuba is a socialist republic in which all the leaders of the state and members of the representative bodies are elected and dismissed by the ‘mass’. Cuba holds elections regularly, but it is a one-party state: the Communist Party of Cuba (CPC) is constitutionally recognized as the ‘supreme engine of society and the state’.
Unable to distinguish the CCP from the state, the party and its ideology penetrate every corner of society. This means that the nomination process for elections can be presented as ‘non-partisan’, with candidates nominated as individuals and not as party representatives – anyway. They are also party members.
Cubans vote in two types of elections: for city councils and for Congress. City council candidates are nominated by show of hands at the local ‘nomination board’. The most recent local election took place on November 27, 2022, with a record abstention of 31.5 percent – an awkwardness in a system that is said to frequently bring about unanimous approval of the masses.
Under the new constitution and election law, National Assembly candidates are nominated by city deputies along with nomination committees controlled by the CPC through the Election Commission. mass organization, from which candidates are expected to emerge. The resulting means includes as many names as the number of parliamentary seats available. There are no competing candidates, and since most school districts elect more than two representatives, options are limited to selecting all of the proposed candidates, some, one, or none. But all a candidate needs to do is get more than half of the valid votes, so ratification is the only possible outcome. That’s exactly what happened on March 26.
At a minimum, democracy can be defined as a system that can remove governments without bloodshed – where those in power can lose an election. Throughout Cuba’s post-revolutionary history, no candidate has ever been defeated.
Another type of campaign
Not surprisingly, since there is no real competition there are usually no election campaigns in Cuba. Instead, there was a lot of political and social pressure to get involved, while abstentions were encouraged by the political opposition and democracy activists.
Eager to avoid abstention in the municipal elections in November, the government spared no effort. Against its own legal ban on election campaigns, it waged a relentless propaganda assault.
Witness there are many voting days characterized by apathy, no evidence of queuing at polling places. Several anomalies have been reported, including coercion and harassment, with non-voters receiving summons or being picked up from their homes. The official statement was released the next day – the lack of independent observations made can’t verify – reported turnout of 76% which the government calls a ‘revolutionary victory’. It may have helped the electoral roll to have been purged, with more than half a million fewer voters than in the previous parliamentary election held in 2018.
But a closer look reveals that abstentions are becoming a regular feature of Cuban electoral rituals – here it is. lowest voter turnout ever in a legislative election – and beyond, other forms of dissent in the polls is growing, including spoiled ballots.
Voting for what?
In Cuba, elections are not a means of choosing a government, nor are they a channel for citizens to express their views. Instead, they serve to legitimize, both domestically and internationally, for an authoritarian regime seeking to present itself as a preeminent form of democracy. They also serve to attract and mobilize supporters and demoralize the opposition.
Ritual elections are just one of many tools the regime uses to stay in power. determination prevent a repetition of mobilization like that of 11 July 2021The government has criminalized protesters and activists, and restricted the expression of dissent online and offline.
But all of this, and efforts to turn a lackluster election into a glorious victory, have only exposed cracks throughout an aging totalitarian power system in decline. In Cuba, the fiction of a unanimous will is a thing of the past.
Ines M. Pousadela is a Senior Research Specialist at CIVICUS, co-director and writer for CITIZEN lens and co-author of Report on the situation of civil society.
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© Inter Press Service (2023) — All rights reservedOrigin: Inter Press Service
