Neither the writers of the article nor I are "gullible" or believe Cuba's electoral system is perfect. No Cuban says it is. BUT:
It is one thing to say, as you do here (with or without sufficient information about how the Cuban electoral process actually functions) that you DISAGREE with the way Cuban electoral democracy is carried out, in whole or in part. It is quite another thing to say, as Cuba-bashers regularly do, that there are "no elections in Cuba". They used to say there are "no free elections in Cuba", but since they got away with that for a long time -- no one ever challenged their definition of "free elections", even though they dubbed the same electoral process in Nicaragua "unfree" when the Sandinistas won and "free" when they lost -- Madeleine Albright took it to a new level in early 1997, I think it was, by simply declaring at a press conference that US policy towards Cuba would remain the same until "there are human rights and elections" there. Which was duly printed by all of the mass media, even though EVERY ONE OF THEM had had reporters there a few weeks earlier (because of the Pope's visit) when Cuba held its regular elections, in which about 95% of eligible voters took part. At least ONE reporter could have asked her, "Don't you mean, they don't have *free* *multiparty* *US-style* (take your pick) elections? Because we were just there, and they certainly did have elections...."
The is the complete re-writing of the truth in the US mass media by pretending there simply are no elections in Cuba.
By the way, I see no reason whatsoever to believe, based on my observation of what goes on here, that having two or more parties in any way translates into more participatory democracy. I think that with NO electoral parties (the CP of Cuba is many things, but it is certainly not an electoral party, and couldn't be by its own regulations as well as electoral law -- in fact I wish they would call it something other than a "party" just to finally eliminate all the confusion that causes), Cuba provides more channels for direct popular participation in their governing process than any "multi-party democracy" I know of. It's very hands-on, very locally based, people DO get recalled by their constituents for not doing their job; every couple of months elected officials have to report back to their constituents in public meetings that are usually well-attended, about what they have been doing, what they've achieved, what they haven't achieved and why not, and to find out what else their constituents want and need. I've been at the ones in my own and other neighborhoods.
Plus, at local through provincial elections, all nominations are public, anyone can be nominated or nominate himself/herself and need only the majority votes of those present to get put on the ballot, there have to be at least two people for each position; everyone 16 and older is eligible to vote and almost everyone DOES vote; and given that these are SECRET BALLOT elections, that is highly significant because 1) there is no penalty for not voting 2) if people didn't feel there was some benefit in voting, then, they wouldn't bother and 3) the US-controlled opposition in Miami and inside Cuba has repeatedly called for people to express their repudiation of the current government by the absolutely safe method of simply not marking their ballots, and that has never produced more than --at most -- 2 or 3% of invalid ballots. Even the US Interests Section has failed to come up with any allegations of voter fraud, ballot-box stuffing, false counts, etc. and you know perfectly well they would be screaming that to the high heavens if they had any indication that was going on.
In addition, I remember conversations with Cubans about the topic of multiple parties back in 1969, and being told (and not by a "Party official", the term corporate media always uses to dismiss something said by a pro-Fidel Cuban) : "Before the Revolution, we had dozens of parties and no democracy." It's one of the reasons, I think, that it took so long for them to set up any kind of electoral process at all. People were very distrustful of what they had known before, and spent a long time trying to develop their own system that would be truly representative. Which meant having a viable way to really inform people about all the candidates -- and at no cost to the candidates, so elections couldn't be bought the way they are here and in other US-supported "democracies". That meant everything from teaching literacy to developing their own mass media to studying various systems around the world and experimenting to see which would work for them.
That's why the first elections were direct elections only at the local level, with those elected officials electing the provincial delegates, and the provincial then choosing the national.
That's also why the newer system provides for direct nomination and election up to the national level, but provides for a system in which all of the mass organizations have representatives on an electoral commission whose job is to choose the MOST REPRESENTATIVE slate of men and women, from all regions, representing all walks of life, white and blue collar workers, etc to make up the slate of candidates. This is not something that the CP does in a back room; the commission holds public meetings in every town and province, screens tens of thousands potential candidates. And even then, voters are given the choice of voting for or against the whole slate, or for or against each of the 600 candidates individually. And if any candidate does not get 51% of the votes, the commission has to come up with a new candidate.
And as I mentioned, they can all be recalled -- and some have been.
So I ask you: in what way do you think our multiparty "democracy" is superior to that?
Articles & Analysis
By Karen Wald