Reply #12: Open to whom? Corporate voting machine companies? [View All]

[Billy Burnett]

I love your persistent (but wrong) repostings on Cuba's democratic process - that, actually, is fully open for all to see during election season.

It would be nice for Americans to be able to go to Cuba, but America's "open democracy" government has travel banned Americans from seeing Cuba for themselves, so all we're left with is uninformed regurgitated BS.

Cubans vote for political leaders and neighborhood representatives
http://havanajournal.com/politics/entry/cubans-vote-for-political-leaders-and-neighborhood-representatives


Residents of the Nuevo Vedado neighboorhood attend a meeting during municipal
elections in Havana, Sept. 11, 2007. Cuba’s communist system is built in part on
these block-by-block gatherings, where anyone 16 and over can nominate neighbors
and vote on candidates for local government. (AP Photo/Prensa Latina)


Voting isn’t mandatory, and younger Cubans aren’t much in evidence at the nominating assemblies, even though participation is strongly encouraged and organizers even take attendance slips.

On O’Reilly Street, families spill out of crowded apartments for the vote. Struggling to be heard over the music, a veteran organizer shouts to the crowd that the assembly will soon begin.

“Raise your hand to vote, but do not raise your hand more than once,” she warns. Soon a microphone is produced, the music silenced and four candidates nominated.

“We all know him as a good neighbor who completes his work,” one woman says in support of the first nominee, party member Buenaventura Fernandez.

“We could leave behind the ‘machismo’ that we’ve always had and nominate a ‘companera,‘“ a man implores, praising the lone female nominee.

But the final vote isn’t close. Fernandez’s name is called first. Without a word, 63 hands go up. The other three get just 39 votes between them.

Everyone applauds. “Viva Fidel! Viva Raul!” they cry, before drifting home. The whole process has taken 27 minutes.

Fernandez is middle-aged and a first-time nominee, but “he was already known by people,” says Jorge Guerrero, a 59-year-old port mechanic and voter, explaining the landslide victory.

Asked if he hopes one day to vote like this for Cuba’s president, Rene Grana, a 77-year-old retiree, replies that Fernandez could win an assembly seat and work his way up from there.

“Maybe we just elected the president of the republic,” he says.

edit: FYI, I have been to Cuba during campaigns


Lot's more info on Cuba's electoral processes in this very informative thread by DUer Mika ...

Electoral Process Continues Smoothly Nationwide (Election season kickoff in Cuba)
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=405x31936