Month: December 2017

Therefore, and in spite of that fact that in Cuba the separation of powers between the executive, legislative, and judicial branches doesn’t exist either – because these are concentrated in the most holy trinity Government-State-Party, legal representative of that ambiguous and intangible body that has been called “the people” – Cubans should not have any reason to question the electoral results that the National Electoral Commission reports, however surprising the figures may seem.

It is worth remembering, in advance, that it is Law 72 (the electoral law) itself, which, when establishing the functions of the National Electoral Commission (CEN), certifies the subordination of the latter to the Council of State inasmuch as it determines that it is to “it” – and not to the “people” – that it must report the results of the national polls in the referendums and the corresponding computations, as well as rendering a “detailed report of the unfolding of each electoral process” (Chapter II, Article 22, paragraphs k and m) .

Thus, the possibility remains that the totalitarian power might be (as it is, in fact) the one that ultimately determines the electoral results and, eventually, manipulates the figures, according to its own interests.

A very peculiar feature of the Cuban electoral law that allows for tricks by the governing class is the number of registered voters, never known publicly in advance of the referendums, even though every Cuban citizen since birth is rigorously registered in the Management Registers of each municipality where he or she resides on the Island. Perhaps the only efficient ministry in Cuba, the Ministry of the Interior, controls the Registry, which in turn appears, duplicated, in each Committee for the Defense of the Revolution, so it should be relatively simple to monitor the voter’s location and update the electoral roll whenever it is required.

Thus, the updating of the register should result in an almost automatic task, since Article 5 of the Electoral Law establishes that the right to vote belong to all Cubans “who have reached the age of sixteen (16), who are in full enjoyment of their political rights “…; while Article 6 specifies the requirements that must be fulfilled in order to exercise the right to active suffrage, among which is “to be recorded in the Register of Voters of the Municipality and in the the electoral district corresponding to the voter’s established place of residence…”

For this reason, there is no logical explanation how it is possible that, after the voter registries have been updated in each constituency and after having had a “successful dynamic test” on Sunday, November 19^th, prior to the elections, when it was supposedly demonstrated that “everything was ready and arranged for a triumphant electoral day,” the CEN has “updated” for the first time the national electoral register precisely on the day of the elections. And it is even more incomprehensible that in the five days following the elections, the final numbers of this registry have varied, not by a few tens of thousands, but by hundreds of thousands of voters.

Let’s review the facts: in the press conference behind closed doors, offered by the president of the CEN, Alina Balseiro, on the afternoon of Monday, November 27^th, to provide information about the “preliminary results” of the elections, this official stated that the voter registration update had yielded a total of 8.8 million voters. This implies a colossal increase in relation to the 8.4 that, according to official data disclosed at that occasion – was the initial estimate.

As if by magic, in just the two and a half years that had elapsed since the last elections, 410,158 new voters appeared, almost half a million more, in the national register. This, in spite of the waves of emigration abroad realized by tens of thousands of Cubans, most of them of voting age, in the same period – and in frank challenge to the many desertions, deaths, dissidences and other adverse factors. Who would have imagined it!

Such an exaggerated number allowed the authorities, in just 24 hours, to increase to 85.9% the embarrassing 82% registered at the polls just one hour before the official closing of the polling stations, but also to declare that the attendance of the electorate had surpassed that of the elections held in April 2015.

The impressing avatars of the electoral numbers of the registry did not stop there, however. Because not even that surprising and already fat attendance at the polls satisfied the inflated official expectations. No matter what anybody says, public opinion tends to internalize percentage figures more easily than the numbers of voters, so the collective memory would have archived 85.9% of voters: a result lower than the 88.30% reached in 2015. The authorities were not going to allow such an unacceptable blunder, because the so-called “Fidel’s Elections” had to be, at least, superior to the previous ones. Those were the orders and they had to be carried out.

And this is how the CEN reapplied its twisted sense of mathematics and worked the new “miracle” of inflating to an impressive 89.02% the number of people attending the polls, with a total of 7,610,183 voters. Thus, the final “compatibilization” of the results with the Register of Voters was published last Friday, December 1^st by the official press.

How did they achieve this new phenomenon? Easy, with the impudence of those who believed to be above punishment, the scribes of the geriatric palace returned to “update” the voter registry, and, as a result, it contracted again, this time by almost a quarter of a million voters. More nonsense, whose sole purpose was to allow the percentile result. If they couldn’t bring it up to the ideal number, at least they would bring it up to reach a higher number than on previous elections. And so, what appears to be the most unquestionable fraud in the 40 years of Castro’s electoral practices to date, was achieved.

Finally, the CEN certified that the final electoral roll for these newly held elections was 8,548,608 voters, which means a whopping 251,392 fewer than those reported in the preliminary results.

With so much inflating and deflating the registry and the polls over decades, the abundance of many flabby cheeks among the lords of Power are justified. However, all this overwhelming saga of numbers and implausible percentage figures undoubtedly point the finger at a gross manipulation of the election results, although we have no chance to prove it, which is another trick which the conspirators counted on.

Nothing new, of course, only that on this occasion the Cuban authorities have shown a rampant disregard for national and international public opinion. Not coincidentally, the journalistic note that reports the “official results” of the Cuban democratic party appears, not on the cover, but just on the third page of Granma, the most official of the official newspapers. They know that they need to lower the profile of even the biggest lies, otherwise, it is way too big a pill to swallow.

Interestingly, as an additional fact, these meticulous back-and-forth “compatibilizations” that favored the regime so much did nothing for the 4.12% of blank ballots or the 4.07% of canceled ones, so that we must accept – because this is what the CEN and its leaders, who (no sarcasm) are the only ones who know the truth – that in a few days the number of voters that swelled the ranks of those who went to the polls to exercise their right to vote, but additionally, their ballots became valid.

And since in Cuba the decisions “from above” cannot be appealed, the olive-green gerontocracy and its conga lines, with their proverbial triumphalism, will have scored this burlesque farce, not as the desperate play that it actually was, but as another “victory.” If so, it will be them and not us who are truly deceived.

Translated by Norma Whiting

The members of the Parliament, in turn, will have the mission of electing the next president of the Cuban government (from a candidacy previously approved by the current government), as established in the current electoral law (Law 72 of the year 1992). A president who, probably, will not be a descendant of the Castro Ruz branch, was not present at the Moncada barracks, was not an expeditionary on the Granma yacht, did not “fire a shot” in the Sierra Maestra and has not ordered anyone to be shot. Admittedly, the events are interesting.

Another suggestive fact has been the curious handling of official data by the National Electoral Commission (CEN) after the closing of all polling stations. In the prolonged primetime broadcast of the national television news program (NTV), aired at 8:00 p.m., the president of the CEN, Alina Balseiro, explained that not all data had been compiled at the national level and that “preliminary results” would be announced at a press conference at 3:00 p.m. on Monday, 27 November.

She also reported that until 5 o’clock in the afternoon of the same day – barely an hour before the official closing of the polls – attendance at the polls was recorded as 82.5% of registered voters. A figure “very preliminary,, but alarmingly low by usual Cuban standards, which Balseiro justified by stating it was “due to the rains that have been affecting mainly the eastern and central regions of the country,” which had an effect on attendance at the polls, so the CEN had decided that a group of voting places would extend their closing hours to 7:00 pm.

The aforementioned press conference took place, in effect, but it developed behind closed doors, behind the backs of the people who had starred the night before in what the triumphalism of the government press had described as a “successful election day,” a “formidable tribute” to the historic leader on the first anniversary of his departure, and a “demonstration of the people’s unity” around their revolution.

It was not until the NTV’s main broadcast on Monday (27 November) that the president of the CEN, in an interview with journalist Thalía González, finally let us know that “the preliminary results” of Sunday’s election day. She said that 7,608,404 Cubans went to the polls, or 85.9% of the total electoral roll.

That means that 14.1% of the electorate did not vote “For Cuba and for Fidel,” despite the intense campaign that had spread through the media in the previous weeks, against the pressures exerted on the voters in numerous polling locations – at least in the capital – from early hours, to go out and vote.

We would have to add to that 14.1%, the 4.12% who left their ballots blank and the 4.07% who voided theirs, for total 22.29% of voters who did not align themselves with the call “for the revolution”; that is, a large number of non-revolutionaries. And it is known that, in Cuba, all abstention is equivalent to denial, ergo, just over 22% of Cuban voters have rejected, in some way, the alleged fidelity to the political system.

In spite of that, Alina Balseiro, whose face showed deep fatigue, stated before national public opinion that “these results are superior to those achieved in the 2015 elections.” She asserted that not only was there greater attendance at the polls, but also “a higher vote quality,” and the decisive participation of the people, which made this electoral success possible, had its best results in the provinces of Santiago de Cuba, Guantánamo, Las Tunas, Granma and Sancti Spiritus. Exactly the same few that she had singled out the day before as “the most affected by the rains” and the ones with most difficulties in poll attendance.

But the lie is short-lived.  Review of the very official numbers held in previous years is enough to verify the deceptiveness of such victorious claims, and the markedly decreasing trend of poll attendance: from 95.8% in 2010, it went down to 91.9% in 2012, and to a shocking 88.30% in 2015, when, for the first time, the decline took the number below 90%.

Such a trend, without doubt, has sown concern among the authorities. Especially when the attendance figure of the recently held elections, far from responding to the call for an meeting with the memory of the Deceased-in-Chief and his “legacy,” has decreased by almost three percentage points compared to the previous ones.

We will have to wait for the next few days, when the authorities get over their hot flashes and the president of the CEN has had enough rest and, therefore, has achieved the miracle of conveniently collating the data, to know the final figures of these controversial elections.

For now, everything seems to indicate that the hopelessness, the poverty, the lack of expectations and the constant stumbles and setbacks of the “Castro Administration” are portraying the immaculate image of Cuba that the General and his court want to sell to the world as “a socialist people, faithful to the revolution and Fidel.” The moral of the story: If the lords of Power aspire to better electoral results in the immediate future, they will have to offer Cubans something other than slogans, the deceased, or the politically correct biographies of “the representatives of the people.”

Translated by Norma Whiting