In Cuba voters
select candidates
•
Interview by Argentine
journalist Carlos Aznárez with President Ricardo
Alarcón of the National Assembly of People's Power
Outside of Cuba there is an idea
that elections here are questionable insofar as there is only
one Party. How is the Cuban electoral system
organized and what are its values, speaking in terms
of democracy?
We
are now in an electoral process. This is one of the
fundamental differences with the model in vogue,
with its supposed paradigm. The essence of election
system in the contemporary Western world implies
that electors, who are not all citizens but rather a
part, are called on to vote for certain candidates
who have been selected by the electoral machine or
political parties. Thus citizens have scant
participation in the selection of candidates. In
Cuba, a process has been underway for some weeks in
which the people select by vote those persons they
wish to present as candidates.
I believe that this is nothing like
the predominant model in the rest of the world. Here,
we could say that millions of Cubans have already
voted, given these nomination assemblies or meetings
to nominate candidates. On October 21, these same
people are convened to go to the polls to elect from
among the various candidates who they themselves
nominated. The candidates are elected, not
designated. They are not there as a result of an
electoral machine.
On the basis of what characteristics
or qualities are they chosen?
Obviously, there is propaganda in
the newspapers or on television talks about
supporting the best, the most capable. But the
reality, for example, is that neighbors raise their
hands in assemblies that take place in all the
neighborhoods, and propose someone who they consider
to be representative. Or, they might propose
themselves, which can be the case and has happened
before. If something abounds in Cuba, it’s elections.
This stage culminates on October 21, and the second
round, in those constituencies where no candidate
has obtained more than 50% of the vote, on October
28.
In elections in the majority of
countries, if a candidates reneges, voters can
punish him or her by not voting in the next election.
What alternatives do Cuban electors have in this
case?
That’s simple: any of the people
elected can have their mandate revoked at any time,
by those who elected them. In recent years, I have
been a [National Assembly] deputy for Plaza de la
Revolución municipality. The first time that this
happened, in 1993, I was invited, as were other
deputies for the area, to take part in the municipal
assembly, with the replacement of its president as
the main point on the agenda. I sat down with the
other participants and there was an intense
discussion: some people were not in favor of
removing the compañero and spoke wonders
about his work. Others severely criticized him.
Suddenly, a compañero got up, a man with many
years of work in this district, and said, "Let’s
leave the drama out of all this, here in Plaza, no
president has ever completed a mandate. We’ve
replaced all of them." There is no timeline, no
restrictions whatsoever on revoking positions. It
can be done at any time, but obviously without this
turning into chaos, with us voting every month.
In images disseminated abroad about
Cuban elections, there is an attempt to ridicule
them by using participation figures which are always
high and in many cases, surpass 90%.
I have an explanation for that. When
you go to vote in Cuba to elect from among a number
of people, and you know that one of them was
proposed in your nomination assembly, you know him
or her, you feel they are closer to you, this gives
you confidence. This is very different from
elections in other countries where candidates cover
walls with posters and their photos, smiling and
promising everything. Secondly, if there’s something
easy in Cuba, it’s voting. The polling centers are
very close to where people live, one block away or
two at the most. This means that many more people
participate than in places where the polls are at a
distance. The voting register is another thing. If
you tour the island today, you will see voters’
lists, on the door of buildings, in grocery stores,
in the stores, all subject to public scrutiny and
popular control. I go and see if my name is there,
and if it isn’t posted, I demand that it be added.
But I also see that they’ve put you on it, and so I
say to myself, this man is an Argentine and doesn’t
live in Havana, and therefore cannot vote here. So
when I go out to cast my vote I already know that
that so many people identified at the entry by their
first and last names are going to vote. Afterwards,
at the time for the count, the commission in charge
invites neighbors at the doorway of the center to
help them count the votes. Let’s compare that with
situations in which people don’t know how many
people can vote where they vote, nor how many people
voted, or even what the result is. (Extracted from
Tiempo argentino)
