[NYTr] Mass Participation in Cuban Elections
 
Date: Wed, 17 Oct 2007 15:58:33 -0500 (CDT)

Via NY Transfer News Collective  *  All the News that Doesn't Fit
 
Agencia Cubana de Noticias (ACN)
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Mass Participation in Cuban Elections 

By Angel Rodriguez Alvarez 
AIN Special Service

The Cuban people will go to the polls on Sunday in the first round of 
elections to vote in delegates to the Municipal Assemblies in 
compliance with the country's Electoral Law approved on October 29, 
1992.

The island's electoral system is designed to incorporate ways in 
guaranteeing a more direct democratic and participatory exercise of 
citizen's right to vote.

The current system promotes the real participation of citizens and 
effective relationship with the candidates. This principle will be 
completed the third Sunday of October when the electoral colleges are 
opened to elect 15,236 delegates, among the 37,328 nominated in 50,760 
neighbourhood assemblies, where more than 7 million citizens, 
representing 84 percent of the population over 16, attended.

Statistics show that elections on the island constitute a singular 
massive democratic exercise of its citizens. In addition to the high 
number of voters in previous elections, always in the upper 90 percent, 
there are also a high number of citizens who voluntarily work during 
weeks before the elections. Each one of the 37,280 colleges is made up 
by a president and four more members, totalling 186,400 Cuban citizens, 
plus another half a million students from primary and secondary schools 
who symbolically guard the ballot boxes.

Finally, are the members and volunteers of the electoral commissions of 
each district and municipality in charge of the organization and 
control of the voting, bringing the total up to nearly one million 
Cuban citizens who are ready to carry out a transparent and democratic 
election.

 From 1976 to date, the Cuban people have repeated this experience 
contributing in creating a participatory culture that goes beyond the 
real intervention of individuals in the election of their government 
representatives. The Cuban electoral experience, continually undergoing 
improvements, has shown that to be genuine, democratic development must 
be based in the creative richness of a civil society.
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