Cuba holds elections on Sunday with opposition urging people not to vote

The Cuban population goes to the polls this Sunday (27) to elect the district representatives in the country. However, the opposition is asking Cubans to abstain from voting, claiming that their candidates were prevented from participating in the election.

Some 26,746 candidates are running for 12,427 district offices in Sunday’s election.

The campaign is prohibited in Cuba and candidates for district office are nominated at neighborhood meetings based on personal merit, not political office.

They don’t have to belong to the Communist Party, and some candidates are independent, but only a few government opponents have ever competed.

Since the anti-government protests that began on July 11, 2021, authorities have tried and jailed hundreds of Cubans for crimes ranging from disorderly conduct to vandalism, raising fears over dissent. Others claim to have been forced into exile.

Obviously, this is affecting the capacity that civil society may have to connect with what I consider to be majorities of citizens who seek change,” said Manuel Cuesta Morua, leader of the Cuban Council for Democratic Transition in Cuba.

The government’s position

The Cuban government sees it differently. Cuba has long viewed opposition activity as subversive and often says it is funded off-island to foment unrest. Cuba’s constitution, approved in 2019 by 90% of the vote, declares its socialist system “irrevocable”.

According to the government, Sunday’s vote is a model of popular democracy in which participants nominate candidates from their own neighborhoods in local assemblies and then voluntarily vote for them.

“Any Cuban citizen can be nominated,” Yuliesky Amador, a law professor at the University of Artemisa in Cuba, told Reuters.

But Cuesta Morua told Reuters there was a difference between law and practice. He said Cuba’s state security prevented three opposition candidates with the best chances of winning from participating in their respective assemblies.

As a result, the activist said he was aware of only one opposition candidate – a 30-year-old baker named José Antonio Cabrera from Palma Soriano, in Cuba’s far east – out of more than 26,000 nominees.

The government did not respond to a request for comment on Cuesta Morua’s allegations. Reuters was unable to independently verify his allegations.

Opposition

Many activists, in the absence of opposition candidates, called on Cubans to abstain from voting.

Opposition group Archipielago, whose members are mostly outside Cuba, urged voters to stay home and void or leave ballots blank.

Abstention has increased in recent years. Cuba’s 1976 Constitution was approved by 98% of voters, with a 98% turnout, while the 2019 Constitution was approved by nearly 91% of voters, with turnout falling to 84%.

The late-September vote on the Cuban Family Code fell more precipitously, with 67% approving the government-backed code. Participation dropped to 74%, high by international standards but an unprecedented low in Cuba.

*Produced by Mario Fuentes, Anett Rios, Liamar Ramos, Reuters