[NYTr] Cuban Elections: an Example of Democracy

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

Agencia Cubana de Noticias (ACN)
http://ainch.ain.cu/mailman/listinfo/ingles


Cuban Elections: an Example of Democracy

By Adelina Vazquez
AIN Special Service

Lack of control, repression, violation of human rights and fraud in 
favour of the economic and political interests of those in power, are 
just a few of what characterizes many of the elections carried out in 
the world.

This is also what happened in the self proclaimed bastion of democracy 
by George W. Bush during the 2000 presidential elections. This sorry 
state of affairs also brings to mind pre-revolutionary Cuba. However, 
starting in 1959, the profound transformations in Cuban society as a 
result of the revolutionary process, set the basis for creating a truly 
democratic system where the people play an important role in the 
country. The population participates and exercises its rights in the 
country's most important events as well as the approval of laws and 
measures adopted by the Revolution.

The first step is voter registration when a citizen reaches voting age, 
which is listed in public places where everyone can verify the 
information and easily report any incorrect data.  The registration 
process in the US for example does not include making the list public 
and all sorts of manipulation. The process outlines the direct 
nomination of candidates in each area in which the population propose 
their candidate in open community meetings taking into account the 
merits of those nominated.

All citizens over the age of 16 have the right to support or reject, 
vote or be nominated, according to the electoral law.

Anyone can be present during the voting count and the results are then 
published immediately making the process transparent and avoiding any 
type of fraud.  In addition, the electoral tables are made up of the 
population.  There is no political campaign on behalf of any one 
candidate in Cuba, only their biography and a photo of those nominated 
with their merits and conditions to represent their community are 
placed in public places. In representative democracies such as the 
United States, results tend to favour those candidates that spend more 
on electoral campaigns.

In Cuba, what is important is the participation of grassroots 
organizations in the nomination of candidates as provincial delegates 
and deputies to the National Assembly.

Tens of thousands of names are processed through representative 
entities of social interests and the electoral commissions gather the 
names of the candidates to be approved in the municipal assemblies made 
up by delegates nominated by the people. Among those delegates and 
deputies that make up the National Assembly, elected by the people 
during the elections, there are scientists, intellectuals, workers, 
agricultural workers, and other people from all walks of life.

Simply citizens with rights to elected and be elected with merits.  
That is how the Cuban elections work in Cuba: transparent and 
democratic.