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Democracy in Cuban Elections is Guaranteed |
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By Miguel José Maury|
Friday, 12 March 2010 08:20
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 Some eight million 400 thousand voters, 71 per cent of the Cuban population, have the right to participate in this year's partial elections, the nomination assemblies of which are underway until March 24.
This figure endorses the principles and democratic vocation governing suffrage in Cuba, which is acknowledged by citizens and expressed by them by way of their notable participation.
The experience of 13 previous electoral processes, since 1976, indicates that over 90% of
Cubans with the right to vote goes to the polls, a percentage hard to match in any other
country in the world.
In the United States, ideologists, leaders and the press boast about impeccable democracy
when, actually, the high abstentionism marks the great distrust and indifference of citizens
with the right to vote.
The policy of openness of Cuban electoral processes encourages the confidence of the people
towards its political system.
As of March 27, the photographs and biographies of nominees will be posted in public places
in each electoral district, so voters who don't know them can have sufficient information to be able t form an opinion and vote for the right person for this job, according to his or her merits and virtues.
We should also bear in mind that until a weeks days the Identity Card offices throughout the country, with the support of the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution, updated
electoral registers in the neighborhoods.
It was an essential step in view of the fact that deaths, transfers of citizens to other places and the incorporation of new voters may have occurred in one year. In the current process 320,000 youngsters have acquired their right to suffrage and have been incorporated to the Electoral Roll.
We're talking about a document that, I other nations causes not a few disputes between political parties contending for power. To begin with, it's kept in absolute secrecy for reasons that are always dark, while in Cuba it's of public knowledge, as reflected in the country's Constitution.
Prisoners, deceased persons or ghost are not included in the register, as it happens in other parts of the world, where money, thirst for power and concealment are the order of the day.
It's a document to which citizens older than 16 years of age are incorporated and to which, in
many nations, their inhabitants gain access by way of payments, favors and other dirty tricks. |
