In a panorama of an acute systemic crisis like Cuba is going through, the results of the March 26, 2023 vote to form the National Assembly of People’s Power (ANPP) showed the lowest turnout in parliamentary elections since 1959.
But in Cuba you vote, but you don’t vote. This was the conclusion of the Electoral Transparency of Latin America, a regional organization dedicated to promoting democratic values and transparent, inclusive, and fair elections on the continent.
After a comprehensive constitutional and legal diagnosis in the Greater Antilles through the application of the best practices of comparative international law, the company submitted a report arguing the existence of limitations in the exercise of human rights, including those of freedom of expression, demonstration, association and political participation.
“According to the constitution, there can only be one ideology on the island, socialist, and it even allows the use of force against those who wish to expose themselves to this impertinence,” says Electoral Transparency.
The organization’s report makes a series of recommendations after identifying the main factors that make it impossible to speak of the Cuban electoral system as a democratic model. The ten minimum measures they propose – which they recognize as necessary but not sufficient – aim for Cuba’s progress towards an electoral democratic transition; and to dismantle an electoral model designed to perpetuate a ruling elite.
The first measure is the elimination of the one-party regime and the irrevocability of the socialist model. Added to this is the end of arbitrary restrictions on civil and political rights that prevent free political participation.
They also propose to abolish the candidature commissions and mass organizations; facilitating the establishment of various political parties and independent civil society organizations; guarantee freedom of expression and freedom of the press so that voters can obtain information from various sources under equal conditions.
Another necessary element they identify to reverse the current situation is the advisability of introducing direct elections as a mechanism for electing the executive and establishing professional and functionally independent electoral administrations and judicial bodies.
They also advise incorporating the figure of long-term national and international election observation into legislation and subjecting the entire electoral system to comprehensive scrutiny by independent actors.
Finally, in order to achieve a democratic transition in Cuba through the elections, the Election Observation Organization proposes to provide effective means of appeal, allowing to challenge the legality or constitutionality of certain acts.
The fundamental objective of the study is to understand how the Cuban electoral system works and, above all, to identify the recognized rights and guarantees so that all citizens can fully exercise their political rights. Second, it attempts to identify the instruments that legislation contains to ensure the realization of the exercise of these rights.
“Although it is clear that the ruling regime has no intention of allowing the transition to opening up a model that meets elementary parameters of democratic integrity and that offers minimum guarantees of pluralistic participation of all votes, the contribution of electoral transparency to the international community is all existing Making contradictions visible to hide the perfect functioning of a constitutional dictatorship, through a facade of democracy that intertwined rules that, while “democratic”, are impossible to achieve,” the organization’s statement said.
For a functioning democracy and the participation of all voices
With the aim of promoting and developing measures to conduct elections under internationally recognized standards of integrity, Electoral Transparency has various programs aimed at making visible the threats to the democratic system, improving electoral processes and electoral officials, party members, politicians and civilians train community organizations on good voting practices.
Its initiatives include support for the implementation of technology for electoral processes, investigations, election observation, training, Voting Integrity Certification for Civilian Institutions and the formation.
Given the exclusion of the Cuban diaspora from exercising their right to vote, last year Electoral Transparency, together with DemoAmlat, created an electronic platform for the Cuban community abroad to express their opinions on the Family Code. 69 people have registered on the platform, 52 of them from Germany, Argentina, Armenia, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Spain, the USA, France, the Netherlands, Italy, Mexico, Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, Sweden and Spain gave theirs Vote from Uruguay. When asked “Do you agree with the Family Code?” 57.69% voted yes and 42.31% voted no.
In the recent Cuban Constitutional and Legal Diagnosis, Electoral Transparency argues that power in the archipelago is concentrated in an authoritarian or totalitarian manner in the hands of a dictator or a group of people who directly or indirectly control the legislative, executive, and judiciary; The principle of the separation of powers as such, an essential prerequisite for consolidating a constitutional state, does not actually exist.
“The main problem identified in Cuba’s electoral system lies in the fact that it is a model that does not aim to regulate and mediate political competition between different forces, but to continue the life of the ruling regime since 1959 by it is both the periodic holding of democratic exercises, such as the recognition of basic rights to exercise political participation,” the report says.
Despite the fact that the rules of electoral organization are similar to those of any democratic country, the organization claims that a truly autonomous electoral body of elected public authorities has not been consolidated, as well as outside of an organization dependent on the ruling regime. If this is the case, the inclusion of the impartial citizens involved in the electoral system would be guaranteed by a specialist body created specifically for the organization and qualification of electoral processes.
At the same time, channels should be created to ensure troubleshooting of an authentic electoral roll that inspires trust, along with a timeline for each electoral process that is equipped with effective complaints resources in which every citizen has the right to challenge the legality or constitutionality of certain acts deliver ; which would have to be resolved by entities outside both the electoral body and public authority, so that they have the necessary objectivity and impartiality to resolve the issues at stake.
The integration of the polling stations, in turn, must offer the certainty of not being an interested party of an organization linked to the interests of the Cuban government or the Communist Party.
On the other hand, Electoral Transparency in the Cuban Constitution identifies the recognition of rights such as freedom of thought, conscience and expression; assembly, demonstration and association rights; and rights to vote and be elected to public office. However, for these rights to be effective, he reiterates that universal political participation must be opened up. This would allow the establishment of political parties and free political competition through open and opposing political campaigns without major obstacles other than aspects of age, honest living and place of residence.
The organization identifies several obstacles in the current process that prevent ensuring free political participation, such as:
- Concept of sovereignty dependent on immutable rules
- Imposing the socialist system as the only permissible and irrevocable system and criminalizing any attempt to contradict it
- Imagine that by constitutional mandate, any person who speaks out differently or against the socialist system becomes a dissident
- Electoral bodies that are functionally dependent and subject to the elected public authorities
- Arbitrary restrictions on civil and political rights, allowing any dissenting citizen to be persecuted and removed from the game under any pretext
- Arbitrary restrictions on free access to all public offices
- Imposition of the one-party system and impossibility of political competition
- Existence of candidacy committees as ideological filters
- Intervention of mass organizations both in the civil service and in all phases of candidate selection
- Existence of Committees for the Defense of the Revolution (CDR) as a mechanism for espionage, intimidation and control of the dissident population.
The elements previously identified, according to the diagnosis, “transform the entire Cuban electoral system into a great contradiction”, expressed in the following questions: What good is the existence of freedom of thought or expression if it can only be tied to the socialist idea ?, how can imagine the electoral bodies being independent when it is the National Assembly that appoints and removes its members, and who can give them by law powers to which they must abide? That is, the deputies appoint the authorities that organize the elections for which they themselves are destined.
On the other hand, how can one imagine the existence of political or ideological plurality if deviating from the established political model is considered a crime? What use is the right of assembly and association if the possibility of founding other political parties is not allowed? What would be the use if there were other political parties if the candidacy committees responsible for examining candidatures consisted of mass organizations whose constitutional purpose is to build, consolidate and defend socialist society? How could one exercise the full right to political participation and hold public office without getting in the way of all the validation filters?
“The control exercised by the ruling regime involved in the whole system of nominating and electing candidates disguised as mass organizations is such that only verified individuals who are part of the system itself can pass. As for equality, the recognition of rights in Cuba depends on respect for the Constitution, which prescribes unique ways of thinking and acting that must be respected so that those who do not do so are restricted in the exercise of their rights. their rights,” the report says.
The organization claims that in a democratic system, the door should be opened to the formation of new and diverse political forces of different ideologies, which can then nominate their own candidates, regardless of whether they are representative or not. Ultimately, he suggests that it should be the electorate who votes to approve or reject the incorporation of various ideologies or proposals.
“It is highly questionable that at all stages of the electoral process and the review of the requirements for potential candidates, electoral bodies should interfere in processes that are typical of public bodies, and public bodies should interfere in processes that should be the exclusive preserve of electoral bodies, which should not be can be understood other than that, as has been argued in this study, all bodies are part of the same entity and all watch and work for the same purposes and interests: to preserve the integrity of the ruling regime,” the diagnosis continues.
The organization draws attention to the decreasing participation in the electoral processes in Cuba, where participation has increased from 97% of the population (2003) to percentages approaching 69% (2022). The increase in abstentions is interpreted as “the only form of dissident political expression exempt from repression, which, trial after trial, raises its voice in rejection of an otherwise jaded model.”