Recent election materials and results

ELECTIONS IN CUBA

by Ruth Valdez and Nancy Abbey-- Cuba Study Group of Santa Cruz County

1.  Nomination and  Election to Municipal Assemblies:

 In each Municipality any citizen can nominate a candidate.  Municipalities are divided into districts of a few hundred people. There are 14,946 districts. At neighborhood street meetings each district nominates, by majority non-secret vote, between two and eight candidates who will compete for the seats on the local Municipal Assembly.

Next, all the candidates’ photos and biographies (which include their merits) are posted in neighborhood markets and CDR offices.  There are no paid advertisements.   Every candidate is on an equal footing.  Secret elections are held and monitored by youth.

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Full Participation:  A Peoples’ Council supports the Municipal Assemblies and works to promote the widest possible involvement of the people as regards local issues. This and other on-going efforts are made to achieve widest possible participation by the people in the management of society, which is the essence of democracy.  (See: “The Parliamentization of the Island”below)

 2. Nomination and Election to  the National Assembly,  and to Provincial Assemblies:

Candidates for the National and Provincial Assemblies are nominated by majority vote in the Municipal Assemblies. They don’t have to be a member of the Assembly to be nominated.  Up to 50% of the candidates are nominated by the Municipal Assemblies, and the rest are proposed by the Candidacy Commissions, which consist of members of groups such as unions, farmers and women’s groups, etc.

 

The Candidacy Commissions spend a year selecting a slate of candidates for these two Assemblies. (See other side for a description of their work.)  This slate must be approved by the Municipal Assemblies.  The Communist Party is prohibited from participating in the work of the Candidacy Commission.  Next, neighborhood meetings are held in which all biographies are read.  Also the candidates as a group hold meetings in work places and other public venues in their Province.  All are on an equal footing, as they do not have “campaign expenses”.  Nation-wide secret direct elections are held and monitored by youth.

 

3.   The National Assembly:   (Legislative Branch) 

The same election process is followed as for Provincial elections, above. National Assembly members, including Fidel Castro, are directly elected for five year terms by the citizenry and must get 50% to win.  The National Assembly has 609 members.   The Communist Party, which is 15% of the population, does not nominate candidates or administer the government.   The National Assembly is the only body with legislative powers. It can amend the Constitution.  It adopts laws and plans, carries out Constitutional duties, and elects judges to the Supreme Court.  It elects, from among its members, the deputies of the Council of State.

4.  The Council of State:  (Executive Branch)

This is the executive branch of the government and implements decisions of the National Assembly.  The council of State appoints Ministers of Education, Health, and so on.

 

Fidel Castro has been repeatedly elected by the National Assembly to be the President of the Council of State.  Most recent election was in January of 2003.  Raul Castro was elected First Vice-President.

 

(See “Cuban Constitution” below.)

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MORE DETAILS

Municipal Elections of 2005

More than 100,000 Cubans participated in 41,600 open  neighborhood meetings in every municipality in the nation.  This high level of participation resulted in the nomination of 32,300 candidates.  Next the candidate’s biographies are posted in public places.  These biographies indicate the candidate’s  moral merits, work history, and sense of community.  Candidates are forbidden to make electoral promises to induce voters to vote for them and must obtain more than 50% of the vote.  On election day voters, in free and secret elections, voted for delegates to the Municipal Assemblies, as they do every 2 ½ years.  More than 8,000,000 Cubans are registered to vote

Once elected, delegates carry out their duties without payment and continue to work in their normal occupations for which they receive wages.  If they do not fulfill their functions they may be removed from office before their term ends. 

Election of President

National Assembly President Ricardo Alarcón addresses questions about Cuban elections, and explains why Fidel Castro is not a dictator:  “Our organs of power are genuinely democratic, elected without the participations of any political party, without campaigns or corrupt contributions.”

Under Cuba’s system of democracy, the president must first be nominated by one of the country’s municipalities, and then must be elected to the National Assembly in secret and free elections.  Once a member of the National Assembly he or she must  be nominated, and then be elected to be President by fellow members in the National Assembly.  (Members of the National Assembly are elected directly by citizens on a local level.) 

 “The fact that the president is not elected directly by the people is not a phenomenon exclusive to Cuba.  It also doesn’t happen in Spain or in England, yet I generally don’t hear about a lack of democracy in those countries.”  “ Like all human work”, Alarcón concludes, “…the key to steps forward is the conscious participation of the people.”

Line of Succession

The Constitution provides for succession in case of death of the President.  The Office goes directly to the First Vice President, who is then obligated to call for a new election almost immediately.

 

Recent Elections

By percentages of 88%, 93% and 91% in the last three national elections Cubans have overwhelmingly demonstrated ongoing support for  their present government even though opposition forces, including Miami exiles, urged that voters boycott the elections, or leave the ballots blank or spoiled, as a protest.  The National Assembly elections of 1993, 1998 and 2003 became, in effect, plebiscites on the Revolution, socialism and the leadership of Fidel Castro.  These were secret votes, not compulsory, and were witnessed by foreign observers.

Single Party System:

Any citizen can be nominated.  Political Parties do not have a role in Cuban elections.  Cuban National hero Jose Martí earlier visited the U.S. to study its election system.  He observed:   “The large companies help with the campaign expenses;  once the candidates are elected, they pay with their slavish vote…”  Martí  concluded that the system in the U. S. “would be nothing but fraudulent while the large monopolists rule the country”, and was not the best form of democracy for Cuba. 

Candidacy Commissions

 

By law, up to 50% of National Assembly candidates can be Municipal Assembly delegates and in the 2003 elections 46.3% were.  At the provincial and national levels, candidacy commissions spend over a year going from town to town sifting through tens of thousands of proposed candidates.  The Communist Party is prohibited from participating in the work of the Candidacy Commissions.  These commissions are comprised of representatives from unions and various workers’ organizations.  The Commissions’ recommendations must  then be presented to the Municipal Assemblies for final approval of the candidates, after which elections are held. 

 

Parliamentization of the Island

 

In 1993-4 during the Cuban economic crisis following the collapse of the Soviet Union a nation-wide period of broad and popular discussion of the economic situation and the possible solutions  was initiated.  More than 80,000 meetings of worker’s parliaments, involving 85% of the workforce, were held throughout the country.  It was these discussions that provided the primary input for the National Assembly’s policy decisions.  Thus the changes initiated in the Cuban economy occurred within the context of broad and active participation of the citizenry.  This massive nation-wide popular consultation clearly distinguishes the Cuban experience and sets it apart from other countries. 

 

Resources

August, Arnold, Democracy in Cuba and the 1997-98 Elections. 1999

Cole, Kenneth,  Cuba: From Revolution to Development.  1998

Evenson, Debra,  Revolution in the balance:  Law and society in contemporary Cuba.  1994

Foner, Philip S.,  U.S. Labor Movement and Latin America: A History of Workers’ Response to                          Intervention, 1998

Roman, Peter,  People’s Power: Cuba’s Experience with Representative Government.  1999

Saney, Isaac,  Cuba: A Revolution in Motion, Chapter 2.  2004

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Revision 10-05