[NYTr] Fidel, Alarcon, Cuban 5 Families Urge "Full Slate Vote for Unity"

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

See also earlier story (Jan 8, 2007):
"Cuban Election: Alarcon Explains Need to Vote for Full Slate"
http://blythe-systems.com/pipermail/nytr/Week-of-Mon-20080107/073938.html


Radio Havana Cuba
http://www.radiohc.cu/ingles/portada.htm


President Fidel Castro: Vote for All Means Unity

Havana, January 9 (RHC-ACN)-- Cuban President Fidel Castro stressed the
importance Tuesday of voting for all of the candidates at the upcoming
January 20th general elections.

In a message sent to the prime-time TV show 'The Round Table', Fidel
Castro noted that all Cuban citizens have the right to vote for the
candidates of their preference, but he stressed that voting for the
entire list of candidates expresses the Cuban people's unity of action.

On Sunday, January 20, the Cuban people will cast their ballots for
delegates of the provincial assemblies and deputies to the national
assembly.

Fifty percent of the candidatures were first nominated as
representatives in their voting districts and later elected to the city
councils. Another part of the candidates were chosen by civic and labor
organizations based on their social, labor and educational backgrounds.

The Cuban leader underscored in his message the 49th anniversary of the
victorious arrival of the rebel army in Havana, remembered in Cuba on
Tuesday. He recalled the rally held back in 1959, at the Columbia
Military Camp and the presence of Commander Camilo Cienfuegos as well
as other details about the important date in Cuban history.

Fidel Castro recalled that a prominent publishing house launched the
first English edition of the book 'Biography in two Voices' or 'One
Hundred Hours with Fidel'.

He also drew attention to his own reflections published earlier Tuesday
by the Cuban media in which he stresses the exemplary personality of
Chilean Elena Pedraza, a prominent Physical Rehabilitation specialist
who collaborated with Cuba for a long time and whom he characterized as
'an exemplary communist.' 

                            ***

A Vote on Behalf of the Cuban Five and Unity

Havana, January 10 (RHC-ACN)-- Elizabeth Palmeiro, wife of Ramon
Labañino who is one of the five Cuban antiterrorist fighters held in US
prisons, said that on January 20 the relatives of those heroes will
vote on their behalf because they cannot meet that obligation, being
unfairly imprisoned.

"Our moral responsibility is to vote, not only for them, but because we
are defending the Socialist model that we began to build since the
triumph of the Cuban Revolution," Elizabeth told Granma newspaper.

Palmeiro underscored that all the relatives of Ramon Labañino, Fernando
Gonzalez, Gerardo Hernandez, Antonio Guerrero and Rene Gonzalez, known
as the Cuban Five, will continue to strengthen their unity in the face
of Washington's hostile-Cuba policy.

"The vote that takes place on Sunday, January 20, will again show that
the Cuban people know that the only way to maintain the Revolution, and
keep advancing, is by strengthening our unity, and based on that unity
change everything that must be changed, and improve everything that
needs to be improved," she stressed.

In the elections, the Cuban people may either vote for the candidates
of their choice or vote for the slate of candidates. Voting for the
whole list of candidates is, for Elizabeth Palmeiro, an expression of
confidence to those who will be members of the Cuban Parliament and the
provincial assemblies; it is also a way of supporting the
representation and participation of the people in those bodies which
take the most important decisions in the country.

"They are the people; they are living with us in our everyday lives and
we feel well represented. Ramon, Gerardo, Antonio, Fernando and Rene
are following closely every event that takes place in Cuba; They, The
Cuban Five, will be with us on January 20," concluded Elizabeth
Palmeiro.