On Sunday, Jan. 20, 8.1 million Cubans—95 percent of the registered voters—voted to elect 1,201 delegates to Cuba’s Provincial Assemblies and 614 delegates to the National Assembly of People’s Power. There were more than 38,000 polling stations throughout the country.
The new 614 deputies of the National Assembly will choose the 31 members of the Council of State and the president
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In order to have the greatest possible representation, half the candidates to the new National Assembly are made up of people elected at the municipal level in October 2007. The other half are representatives of labor, farmers, women and student organizations.
The elections are one expression of the workers’ democracy that exists in socialist Cuba.
From the triumph of the Cuban Revolution in 1959, Cuba has been subjected to acute critique by capitalist hacks because of its supposed lack of “democracy.” But Cuba’s democracy is not bourgeois; it is a democracy by and for workers.
Cuba’s socialist revolution overturned the domination of private property in favor of public ownership and direction of society. Out with the capitalist class went their rigged electoral process. Only then did true democracy begin to flourish.
Democracy in Cuba’s socialist system means many things: popular participation in mass organizations, neighborhood decisions, national debates and much more. One aspect is the electoral system. But Cuba’s elections are vastly different than U.S. contests between rich politicians. How does Cuba’s electoral system work?
At the local level, voters nominate candidates in public meetings to become delegates to the Municipal Assemblies of the Popular Power in their neighborhoods. They can nominate two to eight candidates per district. The delegates later are elected through a direct, secret and voluntary vote. To be elected, a candidate must receive over 50 percent of the votes. This phase of the electoral process took place last in October 2007.
The Municipal Assemblies are composed of delegates elected directly in the neighborhoods. This body then decides the candidates who will become delegates to the Provincial Assemblies and deputies to the National Assembly of People’s Power. The provincial and national candidates are elected by direct, secret and voluntary vote. This is the process that happened on Jan. 20.
It is important to note that the Cuban Communist Party is not an electoral party. The party does not propose, nominate nor promote candidates. The voters are the ones that have the right to nominate, elect, control and revoke their representatives. Many party members become elected officials because of their leadership, sacrifice and dedication to upholding and deepening the revolution. The Communist Party is widely recognized as the organization that leads the revolution.
In Cuba, no representative, delegate or deputy at any level receives any type of monetary remuneration for their services. Their work is strictly voluntary and they receive their normal salary from their current employment.
Candidates in Cuba cannot spend money to promote their campaigns. The country’s electoral commission carries out publicity for the candidates with a simple one-page biography that is posted for all the voters in the district to view. The candidates meet directly with the voters to discuss issues that are of concern to the population. This is vastly different from the billions of dollars spent on presidential and congressional campaigns by capitalist candidates in U.S. elections.
Bourgeois democracy reduces the concept of “democracy” to the electoral process. At the same time, it reduces the limited electoral process to the contest between the predominant capitalist political parties for governmental office.
Consequently, the electoral capitalist system allows only political parties to assume power. The political parties are instruments of a sector of society through which this sector executes its economic class interests. In a class society, the economic interests of the wealthy, property-owning minority are always detached from the needs of the great majority of the population.
Bourgeois ideology generates and regenerates the illusion that through the capitalist electoral system—voting—the people exercise “democracy.” But, in fact, the people only have the “right” to choose who will oppress them for the next four years.
In capitalist politics, the great majority of the people are marginalized. The electoral model under capitalism does not generate mechanisms through which the people can organize and exert a direct influence in the public decisions that affect their daily lives.
The opposite is true in Cuba where the leaders govern in the interests of the majority of society and are truly accountable for their decisions.
Cuba’s electoral system begins in the neighborhoods. Unlike in the United States, the people are not forced to elect rich politicians who are beholden to big capital. There are no millionaires dumping money into campaign coffers in Cuba. The direct participation of the people is thus ensured.
