Cuba, Elections and Electoral Reform / Dimas Castellano

Dimas Castellanos, 4 June 2017 — The “electoral” process which will take place in Cuba between October 2017 and  February 2018 lacks any relevance. Raúl Castro’s replacement as president does not mean he is relinquishing power, as, up until 2021, he will occupy the position of Secretary of the Communist Party, which is, constitutionally, the top man in the society and the state.

For the elections to have any influence on social progress you would need an electoral reform which would re-establish sovereignty of the people and, although in February 2015 a new electoral law was announced, it was not mentioned in the meeting of 14 June 2017.

According to Jean-Jacques Rousseau, from the joining together of those who wish to defend and protect their property emanates a general will to convert the cooperating parties into a collective political body.   The exercise of this general will is known as sovereignty and the people who do it are sovereign.

In Cuba the republican constitutions of 1901 and 1940 endorsed sovereignty as residing in the people, with all public powers flowing from that. In 1959, with the emerging of revolutionary power they promised they would hold elections “as soon as possible”. Seventeen years later, they enacted a law abolishing the sovereignty of the people. As long as this situation goes on in Cuba there will be no true elections.

In the year 2003, the total share of Cubans who did not go to vote and destroyed their voting papers was 6.09% of the electorate. In 2008 it went up to 7.73%, in 2013, 14.22% and in April 2015 was over 20%. That is to say 1,700,000 Cubans. In a totalitarian country without civic and political rights, these statistics demonstrate the need for a law that satisfies this part of the Cuban people. You can add to that those Cubans inclined to vote for opposition representatives – not legally recognised – as happened in the 2015 elections, when the opposition put up candidates in the Havana districts of Arroyo Naranjo and Plaza.

According to the Secretary of the unicameral Cuban parliament, in 2014, during the fourth round meetings where delegates give the electorate an accounting of what they have accomplished,  there were over 600 assemblies with fewer than half the electors present.

The present law limits the electorate’s direct voting to the Delegates of the Municipal Peoples’s Power assemblies, which may not exceed 50% of the total number of candidates. The other half is nominated by the Candidate Committees – made up of leaders of peoples’ organisations with the authority to include unelected people. Then, candidates for provincial and national positions are directly appointed by these committees. Therefore the Cuban parliament and government are the product of the decisions of these Candidate Committees, which are subordinate to the Communist Party, which cuts out the sovereignty of the people.

Transformations are needed in terms of rights – such as the right of association and a multi-party system – so that Cubans can take an active part in determining where their lives and the nation is going. Until that occurs, you can’t talk about true elections in Cuba and there is no indication that that will happen in the upcoming elections.

The absence of peoples’ power and the non-existence of the citizen as legal entity have been, and are, determining factors in the structural crisis of the Cuban model, which is reflected in  inefficient production, insufficient salaries, uncontrollable corruption, hopelessness and an unstoppable exodus.

Published in El Comercio, Lima, Peru.

Translated by GH