On March 26, 2023, 6,164,876 Cubans citizens went to the 23,468 voting places to cast their vote for or against 470 candidates for deputies to the National Assembly of People’s Power, which is the highest political authority in the nation, possessing the constitutional authority to elect and recall the President of the Republic and the cabinet ministers recommended to it by the President. Some 75.92% of the registered voters cast their ballots. Of the ballots cast, 90.28% were declared valid, with 6.22% left blank and 3.50% declared invalid for having written something on the ballot. These results are a victory over the international campaign calling upon Cubans to boycott the elections.
The results were announced on March 27 by
Alina Balseiro Gutiérrez, President of the Electoral National Council. She pointed out that the participation rate
was higher than the November 27 elections for the delegates of the 169
municipal assemblies of the nation, in which 68.56% of the voters cast ballots;
and higher than the referendum on the on the Family Code, which had a
participation rate of 74.12%. (See “Cuba approves new family code,” October 4, 2022; “Cuba elects delegates to people’s assemblies,” December 2, 2022).
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Alina Balseiro Gutiérrez, President of the Electoral National Council, announces the results
The Associated Press stresses that the 75.9% voter turnout is far lower than the 94.2% turnout of 2013. However, AP does not mention that in 2013 the country was in the midst of formulating a new social and economic model, in which there was some disagreement, such that there was much at stake in the voting for deputies to the National Assembly. Now, however, the context is completely different. As a consequence of the intensification of the blockade by the Trump and Biden administrations and the collapse of tourism due to the pandemic, the country is in a serious economic crisis, characterized by inflation, periodic electricity blackouts, shortages of goods, and long lines. The government has put forth and is implementing a well-conceived plan for addressing the economic problems, and no alternative plan has been put forth or is feasible. Thus, the direction of the Cuban national project in the face of the economic problems, which have been primarily caused by international developments, is established and clear. Accordingly, the fact is that the conditions of Cuban daily life in the next few years will be shaped more by international events than by which particular leaders are elected to serve as deputies on the National Assembly.
Therefore, for Cuban citizens at the present time, the primary reason for voting is to affirm the direction taken by the government, and the 75.9% voter turnout is one of the highest in the world. The fact that voter turnout would be high in the midst of an economic crisis is one indication among many that the government of Cuba enjoys a high level of legitimation among the Cuban people.
The elections for deputies to the National
Assembly is actually the second round of elections of this five-year election
cycle. In this round, each ballot lists
the names of generally two to six candidates that had been nominated by the
elected delegates of the particular municipal assembly. The voters could mark a single X for all, or
they could select from those candidates for whom they wish to vote. Balseiro Gutiérrez reported that 72.10% of
the valid ballots marked the X for all, and 27.90% selected candidates from the
list. All of the candidates nominated by
the 168 municipal assemblies were elected to the National Assembly, having
received more than half of the votes cast.
For much of the electoral campaign, the Cuban government and the media were calling upon the people to vote. However, in the days prior to election day, the leaders put forth the notion that to vote for all the candidates on your ballot is the revolutionary thing to do. The fact that 28% of the voters ignored this call reflects a plurality that has emerged within the revolutionary project. In recent years, with the emergence of the new social and economic model, there has emerged some disagreement concerning such questions as the degree of expansion of private enterprises in the economy and what the specific economic measures ought to be. Subsequently, there has been debate of the family code, with the question of gay marriage especially being a source of disagreement. Even though a constitutional and legal consensus has been attained with respect to these economic and cultural questions, it is safe to say that some of the candidates were associated with one side or another in these debates, and some voters were inclined to not support the candidates with whom they had disagreements concerning what the voter considered to be an important question. Although reflecting a pluralism within the revolution, the 28% were expressing support for the revolutionary project by voting and by supporting other candidates on the ballot. The disagreements concern particular laws and courses of action, expressing themselves in a context of support for the revolutionary project.
The newly elected National Assembly convenes on April 19, with 63% of the deputies reelected from the previous legislature. Some 55% of the 470 deputies are women, and 45% are blacks and mulattoes. The average age of the deputies is 46 years, with 20% being less than 35 years of age. Some 95% are college graduates. All sectors of the society are represented, including production, service, the press, education, health, science, culture, sport, students, religion, the military, and owners of small-scale private enterprises.
Balseiro Gutiérrez pointed out that the elections were carried out with total tranquility and normalcy, without incidents of any kind. She stressed that they were carried out under public scrutiny, with mass media present.
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| President Díaz-Canel and seven other Santa Clara candidates on the campaign trail |
Are there elections in Cuba?
I first traveled to Cuba in 1993, participating in an academic interchange with the Latin American Faculty for the Social Sciences (FLACSO) of the University of Havana, organized by the Marxist Section of the American Sociological Association, of which I was a somewhat active member, although a little unorthodox in my Marxist thinking. During said interchange, I was absolutely shocked to learn that there are elections in Cuba. Upon hearing what I thought was reference to elections, I haltingly asked, “Do you mean to say that there are elections in Cuba?” And when it was explained that indeed there are, and when it was further noted that the Communist Party of Cuba does not participate in the elections, I even more haltingly asked, “Then what does the Communist Party do?”
I immediately had questions about these elections. Who is eligible to vote? Who is eligible to run for office? Must one be a member of the Party to hold office? What authority or power do those elected have? It took me a couple of years to track down the answers to these questions, satisfying myself that I had empirically reliable confirmation of the answers to which I had arrived. I thus arrived to the conclusion that Cuba has a political process that any reasonable person would call democratic, with structures different from, and in key respects superior to, those of representative democracy. Sometime around 1998 I published an article in a couple of places on the Internet, entitled “The myth of Cuban dictatorship.”
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In the case of the myth of the Cuban dictatorship, the two constantly repeated facts were, first, that Fidel had been the head of state for many years, and secondly, Cuba does not hold elections involving two or more competing political parties. Taken by themselves, these two facts imply a political process that is authoritarian or totalitarian and undemocratic. But when they are presented with a whole host of other relevant facts with respect to the Cuban political process, a completely different picture emerges.
Let us look at the more complete picture. Cuban territory is divided into 12,427 voting districts. In anticipation of elections for 169 municipal assemblies in the nation, which are held every five years, three or four neighborhood nomination assemblies are held in each voting district. At said assemblies, any citizen can put forth the name of a person for election as a delegate to the municipal assembly. Any citizen present has the right to speak of the strengths and limitations of the persons who names are put forward. The suggested names are then put to a vote through a show of hands. The electoral commission of the voting district is informed of the results of the nomination assemblies, and on the basis of the results, the electoral commission formally declares the candidates for delegate from the district to the municipal assembly. By law, there must be at least two and no more than six candidates; generally, there are two or three.
The two or three candidates do not make campaign promises, and they do not conduct campaigns. Their names with a brief biography are posted side-by-side in prominent public places in the district. They are nominated and elected on the basis of their achievements in their professions or fields of employment or study, or because of their contributions to the local community and/or the nation. If no candidate receives a majority of the votes, a runoff election is held.
Once constituted, the 169 municipal assemblies elect candidates for deputies of the National Assembly of People’s Power. They are assisted in this task through recommendations made by candidacy commissions formed by representatives of the mass organizations: the Workers’ Federation of Cuba, the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution (a nationwide organization of neighborhood organizations), the Federation of Cuban Women, the National Association of Small Agriculturalists, the University Student Federation, and the Federation of Secondary School Students.
Once the candidates for deputy to the National Assembly are approved by the municipal assemblies, the candidates begin tours of neighborhoods and centers of work and study, in which there are direct interchanges with the people, with respect to projections and expectations. The people are given ample space to speak, and in general their comments fall into three categories: expressions of appreciation of the high quality of the candidates; descriptions of daily problems, large and small, in the place of work or in the local community, seeking to increase awareness of the candidates; and expressions of appreciation of the electoral process and the socialist political-economic construction of the nation.
During the moths of March and April, the brief biographies of the candidates were regularly covered on Cuban national television, gradually presenting the candidates from the different municipalities across the nation. And the high-quality interchanges between the candidates and the people were extensively covered on Cuban television. As a result, the high-quality of the candidates became evident. This may have been a factor in the increase in voter participation in the elections for deputies the National Assembly, an increase from the voter participation rate in the election of delegates in November to the 169 municipal assemblies of the nation.
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| The Voters Speak |
Yanet Solórzano Hamilton, a primary school teacher in the province of Las Tunas and elected deputy for the municipality of Puerto Padre, declared that the touring days by the candidates has been beautiful. “Each place has received us with respect, with admiration, with clarity concerning the challenges that we confront today. The support of the people for our political system, the unity of the people for the Revolution is, without doubt, a sign that nothing or no one will be able to take away our achievements and our dreams.”
As noted above, the National Assembly of People’s Power is the highest authority in the nation. It elects the President of the Republic, and it confirms the cabinet of ministers presented by the elected President. It elects the highest members of the judicial branch. It enacts legislation. It has the power to amend the Constitution.
The delegates and deputies of people’s power are not professional politicians. The assemblies meet periodically during the year; they are not permanently in session, although various legislative commissions are in continuous session. The deputies and delegates keep their regular employment, except when they have extensive work on legislative committees, in which case they take a leave of absence from their post. They do not earn additional income through their service as delegates and/or deputies.
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| Newly elected deputy Yanet Solórzano Hamilton with her students |
The Communist Party of Cuba has been left to the side by the Cuban political process, and deliberately so, because it is a vanguard political party. It is composed only of members that are considered leaders, who are selected by the Party itself. The Party’s role is to educate and guide the people, to cultivate among the people the consciousness necessary for the continued construction of a socialist society in accordance with the particular conditions of the nation. Its authority is moral, not legal.
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The three components, then, of Cuban people’s democracy are: People’s Power, the delegates and deputies of people’s assemblies, elected by the people; the mass organizations of neighborhoods, workers, women, students, and agriculturalists; and the Communist Party, a vanguard political party that guides but does not decide.
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In my view, people’s democracy has certain definitive advantages over representative democracy. In the first place, in eliminating campaigns and campaign financing, people’s democracy eliminates the role of money and the need for politicians to balance the needs of their constituencies with the interests of their major campaign contributors. Secondly, in eliminating a situation of competing political parties that must win elections to survive, people’s democracy removes the conflictive tendency of representative democracies, and empowers elected officials to concentrate on the seeking of consensus for the common good. These two dimensions create the structural conditions for high-quality public discourse that is oriented to the resolution of problems that the nation and humanity confront. The high quality of public discourse in people’s democracy, and its superiority over the discourses of politicians in representative democracies, is clear to all who have had the privilege of listening to it.
Many people favor direct over indirect elections. I believe that direct elections have the intrinsic disadvantage of favoring those who are good at mobilizing support among people that they will never meet, giving rise to an industry of campaign management, which has demonstrated its capacity for manipulation of the issues. I think it is better to elect delegates at the local level and to entrust them with the task of responsibly electing deputies at higher levels of government.
Government of, by, and for the people
When the U.S. government and the Western media speak of the political process in Cuba, they falsely state that the authority of the National Assembly is nominal, and that the Communist Party of Cuba has actual control. In fact, as can be seen through empirical observation, the authority of the National Assembly is real. The Party has de facto control, because when the elected delegates and deputies of the people exercise their authority in the municipal and national people’s assemblies, they frequently vote for Party members, because of their commitment to the principles of the Party, and because of their faith in the leaders of the Party. But in any moment in the future, if the delegates and deputies of the people’s assemblies were not to have such commitment and faith, they are fully empowered to vote for others, with different principles and leaders. They have been constitutionality granted such authority by the Cuban Revolution, led by Fidel. However, for such a change in direction to occur in Cuba, leaders would have to emerge from the breast of the people who are capable of formulating alternative principles and an alternative national project, attaining the support of the people for said project; it could not possibly emerge on the basis of half-baked ideas that have credibility only in the political culture of the USA.
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Published at Network in Defense of Humanity
