[NYTr] In Cuba, Democracy a Block at a Time
 
Date: Sat, 6 Oct 2007 19:35:10 -0500 (CDT)

Via NY Transfer News Collective  *  All the News that Doesn't Fit
 
[Even the AP's Will Weissert doesn't seem to be able to muster up
too much bile in this report on the local election process in Cuba.
It's getting harder and harder for the generally unconscious 
mainstream press to ignore the obvious. -NYTr]

AP - Oct 6, 2007
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/C/CUBA_STREET_CORNER_DEMOCRACY?SITE=VOICESD&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

In Cuba, Democracy a Block at a Time

By WILL WEISSERT
Associated Press Writer

 HAVANA (AP) -- This is democracy, Cuban style: salsa music and a show
of hands on a street corner in Old Havana.

The beat pours from curbside speakers, signaling to about 150 neighbors
to gather and choose candidates for the capital's municipal assembly.

"Just observe - it's democracy," says Mario Hernandez, a leader of his
block's Revolutionary Defense Committee, jabbing a meaty finger into a
reporter's chest at the corner of Villegas and O'Reilly Streets.

"Here there are no rifles, no repression," adds the 71-year-old, a fat
stogie clenched between his teeth. "You'll see."

Cuba's communist system rests in part on these block-by-block
gatherings, convened every 2 1/2 years, where anyone 16 and over can
nominate and elect neighbors to local government posts.

These "nomination assemblies" are organized by election officials and
the Revolutionary Defense Committees, which keep tabs on residents and
are located on nearly every block across the nation of 11.2 million.
Nominated candidates vie for seats on municipal assemblies, which help
choose candidates for Cuba's National Assembly. That national
legislature in turn approves appointments to the island's supreme
governing body, the Council of State.

Real power has always rested with President Fidel Castro, who has never
had to put his job to a free vote. The 81-year-old hasn't been seen in
public since emergency intestinal surgery forced him to cede power to
younger brother Raul in July 2006. He officially still heads the
Council of State, but unless his health improves, council members could
replace him with Raul next spring.

The United States says Cuba's system is antidemocratic because it
doesn't allow direct multiparty elections for president. Cuba retorts
that in America, the candidates who raise the most money usually win.
It also maintains that the U.S. doesn't have direct presidential
elections either, pointing to the electoral college that gave the 2000
election to George W. Bush, even though Al Gore got more votes.

And while the Communist Party runs the government, a third of the
37,328 candidates chosen at nominating assemblies to run for municipal
posts won't be party members, but men and women chosen because their
neighbors like them.

Critics note, however, that when municipal assembly seats are
determined in a secret ballot election on Oct. 28, the only winners of
the more than 15,000 posts will be Communist Party members.

Moreover, the initial nominating that ran until Sept. 26 was by a show
of hands, not a secret ballot, which effectively bars dissidents from
running, say critics such as Alejandro Tru, of the tiny, opposition
Liberal Party of Cuba.

If anyone raised a hand for a dissident candidate, "there are 1,000
subtle and not subtle ways" to intimidate them into withdrawing their
nomination, he said.

Since Cuban elected bodies exist mainly to rubber-stamp government
policy, membership doesn't offer much of a legislative challenge. Nor
does it pay much. But it carries a prestige that attracts top artists,
singers and authors to vie for seats.

Voting isn't mandatory, and younger Cubans aren't much in evidence at
the nominating assemblies, even though participation is strongly
encouraged and organizers even take attendance slips.

On O'Reilly Street, families spill out of crowded apartments for the
vote. Struggling to be heard over the music, a veteran organizer shouts
to the crowd that the assembly will soon begin.

"Raise your hand to vote, but do not raise your hand more than once,"
she warns. Soon a microphone is produced, the music silenced and four
candidates nominated.

"We all know him as a good neighbor who completes his work," one woman
says in support of the first nominee, party member Buenaventura
Fernandez.

"We could leave behind the 'machismo' that we've always had and
nominate a 'companera,'" a man implores, praising the lone female
nominee.

But the final vote isn't close. Fernandez's name is called first.
Without a word, 63 hands go up. The other three get just 39 votes
between them.

Everyone applauds. "Viva Fidel! Viva Raul!" they cry, before drifting
home. The whole process has taken 27 minutes.

Fernandez is middle-aged and a first-time nominee, but "he was already
known by people," says Jorge Guerrero, a 59-year-old port mechanic and
voter, explaining the landslide victory.

Asked if he hopes one day to vote like this for Cuba's president, Rene
Grana, a 77-year-old retiree, replies that Fernandez could win an
assembly seat and work his way up from there.

"Maybe we just elected the president of the republic," he says.

B) 2007 The Associated Press. 

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