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ELECTION OUTCOME
The winds of change are blowing
in Miami
BY ANDRES GOMEZ —Editor of Areítodigital—
MIAMI (November 12).— The outcome of the recent
elections in Miami-Dade County are extremely
revealing, particularly with respect to the three
U.S. Congress members who are Cuban-American and who
represent what is most vile about the
counterrevolution: Lincoln and Mario Díaz-Balart and
Ileana Ros-Lehtinen.
There are strong winds blowing over the Miami
political and electoral scene. There is a lot to be
studied in those election results, which are very
instructive. They might just be a scare, or they
might well indicate an electoral future very
different from what has existed over the last 15
years. In order for these indicators to become the
latter, the existing party structures in Miami will
have to be recreated.
These three reactionary Congress members, the Díaz-Balart
brothers and Ileana (the Gabys, Fofós and Milikis,
of our political fauna) were reelected by a slight
majority. The opponents of all three were political
unknowns who had neither the backing of the
Democratic Party – even though they were running as
Democrats – nor the money to buy even a burger.
Lincoln Díaz-Balart, for example, had Frank González
as his main rival, an absurd individual who
nevertheless won 47,734 votes, while Díaz-Balart won
65,368, a difference of 17,634 votes. Mario, his
younger brother, won 59,507 votes; while his
opponent, Michael Calderín — very well-known at home
— won 42,624 votes, a difference of 16,883. Ileana,
the sharpest of the three, won 77,962 votes, and her
opponent, the equally unknown David Patlak, won
47,734, a difference of 30,228.
For
everyone in Miami, it is obvious that the votes won
by the opponents of the three Congress members were
not for the former, but instead a vote of
categorical rejection of the other three. It was,
above all, a spontaneous vote, without any political
entity organizing or backing it.
The
vote against these three sinister individuals was
against their politics, which is preventing the free
exercise of political rights in our community, and
via which the minority section of the extreme right
– through many means, including the use of terrorism
–, has achieved absolute control of this; it was a
vote against the policy that arbitrarily denies us
our Constitutional rights of being able to travel to
Cuba to share with our families, as well as against
the sadistic policy of permanent aggression against
the safety and well-being of all our families on the
island. It is a policy that refutes any possibility
of a just and sensible understanding between the two
countries. This was a vote against political
corruption and the wasting of public money in our
community and in the rest of the country, and
against many other terrible questions that these
three people exemplify, promote and defend like
nobody else.
The
three electoral districts of these Congress members
cover – with the exception of District 17, which is
centered in the county’s African-American
neighborhoods – almost all of Miami-Dade.
The
total number of votes received by these three
extremely reactionary Congress members in our county
was 171,344; that is, 15.7% of registered voters in
Miami-Dade, 1,090,048 voters.
Throughout the country and throughout the world,
these three pathetic individuals boast about
representing the wishes of the Cuban community in
South Florida. These election results reveal that to
be a lie. The emperor, ladies and gentlemen, is
wearing no clothes.
Moreover, Lincoln Díaz-Balart was defeated by Frank
González in the 33 zones of his electoral district –
the 21st – that are part of Broward County, by 2,917
votes (12,238 for González against 9,321 for Díaz-Balart).
And
regarding all of this – an extremely important
political development in a community lorded over by
the extreme right – not a single word in the Miami
media. Not one word. Hence, the media is once again
demonstrating its complicity and submission.
These elections also show that for those who reject
the policies and control of the Cuban-American
extreme right in Miami, the partisan electoral
system as it now exists does not permit an
alternative political project to be viable. The
extreme right, foreseeing this possibility for
years, has also controlled the Democratic Party in
our county.
Joe
García, director of the formerly powerful
Cuban-American National Foundation, is the top
Democratic Party leader in Miami-Dade. The idea that
the extreme right spreads is that Joe García is more
moderate that Díaz-Balart and Ileana. It is like
saying that Himmler was more moderate than Hitler...
The
outcome of these elections shows the unavoidable
necessity of new political elements becoming
organized and establishing a real electoral
opposition in our county. The moment is the most
opportune.
Translated by Granma International |
