Critics: Cuban local elections a farce
Cubans will head to the polls on Sunday in an election that some critics
have argued is a farce.
Posted on Sat, Oct. 20, 2007
BY FRANCES ROBLES
frobles@MiamiHerald.com
When Cubans head to the polls Sunday for the first step in an electoral
process that ultimately will choose the island's president, one
candidate's name will be missing from the ballot: Gerardo Sánchez.
The human rights activist in Havana's Playa neighborhood wanted to see
what would happen if he ran for a spot on the local municipal council,
in what Fidel Castro once called ``the most democratic process in the
world.''
Sánchez wasn't hopeful: The election was organized by his local
neighborhood watch group, the Committee for the Defense of the
Revolution, and last month's poll to choose whose name would appear on
Sunday's ballot was by a show of hands, not secret vote.
''All my neighbors had seen how many pro-government mob attacks there
have been at my house, and they were panicked. Do you know what panic
is? I mean panic,'' Sánchez said by telephone from Havana. ``There were
a little less than 100 people there, and I got four votes plus mine. I
just wanted to prove what a circus that was.''
LOCAL COUNCIL
Sunday's election will choose members of the local governing council,
which is elected every 2 ½ years. The first step was block meetings,
held last month, when neighbors got up one by one to extol the virtues
of various candidates.
'The next day, people came up to me and said, `Sorry about that, man,
but I couldn't let them see me vote for you,' '' Sánchez said. ``Like I
was a thief or drug or weapons trafficker!''
The vote Sunday for the neighborhood council members will be secret.
Those members later will choose the municipal assemblies, which in turn
will elect the members of the National Assembly. The National Assembly
ultimately selects members of the Council of State. Fidel Castro was
president of the council for decades.
CALLED RUBBER STAMPS
The bodies are widely criticized as rubber stamps that always manage to
come up with the same winner: Castro. Opposition parties are not
allowed, and criticizing Castro can land Cubans in prison, so voters are
unlikely to cast ballots for known critics.
But this year's election is nevertheless being watched closely, because
it's the first since Castro took sick last year and named his brother
Raúl to run the country. He has only been seen in photos and periodic
videos.
It remains to be seen whether Fidel will be a candidate in next year's
National Assembly elections, or whether his illness will keep him off
the ballot.
Those elections could theoretically pave the way for a new leader for
Cuba, experts said.
''No one would confuse this with a free and fair election process; at
the same time, there appears to be some choice for Cubans,'' said Cuba
expert Daniel Erikson of the Inter-American Dialogue in Washington.
'It's the equivalent of standing in line at Copelia ice cream shop in
Havana and getting to choose between chocolate chip, dark chocolate or
regular chocolate, and everybody is like, `Well, I want strawberry.'
It's not a completely irrelevant process, but it's pretty close to
irrelevant.''
CAMPAIGNING ILLEGAL
The Cuban government heralds its process as free and transparent, noting
that campaigning is illegal. In the United States, Cuban government
supporters say, the richest person wins. In Cuba, participation is more
than 95 percent and you are nominated by your neighbors, not the
Communist Party.
''I just want to live in a normal country, where you get to vote for
your leaders,'' Sánchez said. ``Maybe if I was allowed to campaign, tell
people what my platform is and collect signatures, I could actually get
some votes.''
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/cuba/story/278116.html
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