Cuban Candidates” Biographies at Public Places

Written by Prensa Latina
Monday, 29 March 2010 13:41
Cubans are consulting on Monday biographies and photos of about 34,776 candidates for the April 25 partial elections who will elect delegates to the Municipal Assemblies.

That date and the following Sunday, May 2, in the second round in those districts where none of the proposals have more than 50 percent of the valid votes, would be elected the ones to occupy these positions.

Any Cuban with the right to vote in each district will have the possibility for almost a month of reviewing the only propaganda authorized in the Caribbean island’s election system.

As law establishes, candidates’ merits was placed at public places as of March 28, without any promise or program to fulfill during their performance as delegates.

According to Cuban Parliament President Ricardo Alarcon, the delegate is the people’s representative in districts, has a great responsibility, and is a guide for the community.

The delegate is not a professional and will not receive any payment; he or she will represent the neighborhood at the government level, and lead people to face difficulties, Alarcon said.

CUBAN CANDIDATES BIOGRAPHIES AT PUBLIC PLACES

Cuban Candidates Biographies at Public Places

By Ray
lunes, 29 de marzo de 2010

(Prensa Latina) Cubans are consulting on Monday biographies and photos of about 34,776 candidates for the April 25 partial elections who will elect delegates to the Municipal Assemblies.

That date and the following Sunday, May 2, in the second round in those districts where none of the proposals have more than 50 percent of the valid votes, would be elected the ones to occupy these positions.

Any Cuban with the right to vote in each district will have the possibility for almost a month of reviewing the only propaganda authorized in the Caribbean island’s election system.

As law establishes, candidates’ merits was placed at public places as of March 28, without any promise or program to fulfill during their performance as delegates.

According to Cuban Parliament President Ricardo Alarcon, the delegate is the people’s representative in districts, has a great responsibility, and is a guide for the community.

The delegate is not a professional and will not receive any payment; he or she will represent the neighborhood at the government level, and lead people to face difficulties, Alarcon said.

NATIOWIDE ELECTORAL PROCESS RUNNING EFFICIENTLY

NATIONWIDE ELECTORAL PROCESS RUNNING EFFICIENTLY

by ACN — last modified Mar 22, 2010 02:46 PM

The President of the National Electoral Commission (NEC), Ana Maria Mari Machado, said the first stage of the Cuban electoral process is running smoothly across the island with people electing candidates for municipal assemblies.

Nationwide Electoral Process Running Efficiently

Cuban electoral process is running smoothly across the island.

“The meetings to elect the candidates have been characterized by the people’s openness and seriousness in their proposals,” said Mari Machado during a meeting with reporters at the NEC headquarters.

She explained that out of the 50,907 meetings scheduled in the country, a total of 49,192 of them have taken place, which represents 96.63%, with a participation of 86.7% of voters.

During these meetings, the electoral authority added, 34,069 candidates have been elected, including 12,160 women and 7,522 youths, representing 35,69% and 22,08%, respectively.

Mari Machado noted that provinces such as Granma and Villa Clara have already held 99% of their scheduled meetings and she stated that more than 9,000 delegates who are already holding posts in municipal assemblies nationwide have been re-elected as candidates.

She recalled that this stage will conclude on March 24 and announced that a Dynamic Trial is scheduled for April 18, only a week before the first round of the partial election take place on April 25. The second round is to take place on May 1.

SOME THINGS TO BEAR IN MIND

The foundations of the Cuban institutional system are the delegates of the constituency, who gather in people’councils -bodies that group together a number of delegates to work operatively- and integrate municipal assemblies as governing boards of the territories.

In our elections, unlike the wrongly named representative democracies, fortunes, entrepreneur interests and policy makers do not fight in the polls; political parties do not contend for benefits that receive from power, the Register of Electors are not hidden to people, and it’s not necessary a payment to be part of them; soldiers do not guard the electoral colleges, but little pioneers; the polls are not confiscated and the votes are not count secretly.

What about in your country? The same?

A Party without Electoral Purposes and a Guarantor of the Elections

Unlike the universal practice, the Communist Party of Cuba (PCC) has since its creation nearly half a century ago, the thesis that it is not an institution for electoral purposes: neither appoints candidates nor elects them.

Its role as “the highest leading force of society and the state” is defined in the
Constitution of the Republic, approved in a popular referendum in 1976, when 98 percent of voters exercise their right in an election that set standards of participatory democracy.

The PCC embodies the fighting traditions of earlier generations; it is a follower of the Cuban Revolutionary Party founded by José Martí to achieve national independence, the first Communist Party and the revolutionary organizations that fought against the tyranny of Fulgencio Batista.

Such a background legitimize the existence of a single party under the conditions of the island facing since the beginning of the Revolution in 1959 the unbridled interventionism of the U.S. governments that have sought to regain its former colony at any price.

Under these conditions, the defense of the revolutionary is recurrent; the party’s electoral role is limited to ensuring that elections are carried out transparently and according to the Constitution, as in the current process of nomination of candidates to the Municipal Assemblies of People’s Power.

Even membership (in the PCC) of the nominees is not a requirement, although many of them are militants, precisely because of being prestigious citizens.

But this democratic exercise is not manifested only when there is call to the polls, but the political and mass organizations, including children from fourth grade, regularly elect their grassroots leaders and even at the national level.

Another characteristic is that in no type of election electoral propaganda is allowed such as posters, billboards, television and radio appearances, nor rallies in favor of the candidates.

How much would be done in Cuba with the record of 641 million dollars raised in 2008 for the presidential campaign of Barack Obama, who made many promises to win the power at the White House and has not fulfilled any?.

Each of these alienating messages is replaced by the publication in public places of the biographies and photos of the candidates under the same conditions for each of them. The candidates, as a rule, are widely known by voters, because they are prestigious citizens living in their own neighborhood.

Even the custody of the polls differ from the traditional one, guarded by children as opposed to the threatening presence of police or armed soldiers at the doors of polling stations, something typical in other countries.