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Cuba's national legislature, the National Assembly of People's Power, has 609 members who sit for five-year terms. Members of the National Assembly represent multiple-member constituencies (2 to 5 members per district), with one Deputy for each 20,000 inhabitants. The most recent elections to the National Assembly were held on 19 January 2003.
Electoral system
The current Cuban electoral law was adopted by the National Assembly of People’s Power in July 1992 after "unprecedented openness in debate, not just among party members, but also among the entire populace, so as to foster greater participation and build 'the necessary consensus' for the government's policy response...Eventually, some three million people participated in the pre-Congress discussions." and ultimately approved by the Fourth Congress of the Communist Party of Cuba and endorsed in a national referendum . Under this law, candidates for the National Assembly are chosen by Candidacy Commissions chaired by local trade union officials and composed of elected representatives of "mass organisations" representing workers, youth, women, students and farmers.
According to the Cuban Ministry of External Affairs, at the October 2002 elections to these commissions which preceded the January 2003 National Assembly elections, "32,585 candidates were nominated for the 14,949 seats up for election in October 2002 at grassroots assemblies in which 81.7% of the voters participated." At least half of the National Assembly candidates selected must have been previously elected as delegates to these assemblies.
The Candidacy Commissions produce slates of recommended candidates for each electoral district. The final list of candidates, one for each district, is drawn up by the National Candidacy Commission, taking into account criteria such as candidates’ popularity, merit, patriotism, ethical values and “revolutionary history.”. Although there is only one candidate per seat (voters must vote for the 2-5 seats on the ballot paper), candidates must obtain the support of 50% of voters to be elected. If a candidate fails to gain 50% of the vote, a new candidate must be chosen. So far this has never happened for the National Assembly, because the candidates put forward by the candidacy commissions usually get at least 84% support.
Cuba has only one legal political party, the Communist Party of Cuba (PCC), whose leader, Fidel Castro, has been in power, first as Prime Minister and then as President, since 1959. No other political parties are permitted, and no organised or overt opposition to the PCC’s monopoly of political power is tolerated. Although the PCC does not nominate candidates for election to the National Assembly, no candidate who is opposed to the PCC’s policies has ever been selected. Since the electoral law bans election campaigning, even if a candidate opposed to the PCC were to nominate for election, they would be unable to make their views known to the voters. However the ballot itself is secret, and voters can reject any of the candidates put forward, including Fidel Castro, but even for the least popular candidate only 16% of voters choose to do this.
Opposing views
The Cuban government and its supporters in other countries argue that Cuba has a form of democracy despite the fact that voters have only a single candidate on their ballot paper at National Assembly elections. The Cuban Ministry of External Affairs describes the candidate-selection process as deriving from “direct nomination of candidates for delegates to the municipal assemblies by the voters themselves at public assemblies,” and points out that at the elections to the municipal assemblies, voters do have a choice of candidates. The ban on election campaigning is presented as “The absence of million–dollar election campaigns where resorting to insults, slander and manipulation are the norm.”
Cuba justifies the existence of only one political party by arguing that the PCC “is not a political party in the traditional sense… it is not an electoral party; it does not decide on the formation or composition of the government. It is not only forbidden to nominate candidates but also to be involved in any other stage of the electoral process… The CPC’s role is one of guidance, supervision and of guarantor of participatory democracy.”
Cuba’s supporters in other countries argue that the Cuban system is more democratic than that used in multi-party democracies. The Cuba Solidarity Campaign, a group based in the United States, says: “Electoral candidates are not chosen by small committees of political parties… Instead the candidates are nominated individually by grass-roots organisations and by individual electors… The successful candidate is chosen by secret ballot. The Electoral Law of 1992 stipulates that delegates to the municipal and provincial assemblies and the 601 deputies to the National Assembly are all elected by popular suffrage using a secret ballot… Unlike the case in other states, which invariably criticize Cuba for being ‘undemocratic’, voter turn-out in Cuba is high. In April 2005, 97.7% of electors came out to vote for their deputies to the municipal assemblies.”
Cuba’s critics maintain that the Cuban electoral system is a device to conceal the reality of Communist Party rule. They argue that Cuba is a totalitarian political system, modelled on the Soviet Union, in which all so-called “mass organisations” are controlled by the PCC, and that the candidate-selection process is façade for PCC control. Since no public criticism of the fundamentals of the Cuban system of government is permitted inside Cuba, no internal Cuban sources can be quoted. Critics of the Cuban system are based outside Cuba, particularly among the more than one million Cubans who have emigrated since 1959.
William M. LeoGrande, in a paper written for the Cuba Transition Project at the Institute for Cuban and Cuban-American Studies at the University of Miami, wrote of the 1992 election law: “When the new electoral law was finalized… it dashed any hopes for a significant opening to alternative voices. The ban on campaigning was retained, and the nomination of provincial and national assembly candidates was entrusted to Candidacy Commissions. Through an elaborate process of consultation… the Candidacy Commissions… produced slates of nominees with just one candidate per seat. Voters only had the choice of voting yes or no. Thus, the election process at the provincial and national levels avoided the possibility of even implicit policy differences among candidates.”
International human rights organisations such as Human Rights Watch are regularly critical of the denial of political choice in Cuba. HRW noted in 2002: “The country's lack of democracy and intolerance of domestic dissent remained unique in the region.” Commenting ion former U.S. President Jimmy Carter’s visit to Cuba, HRW said: “Carter drew attention to some of the country’s most serious human rights problems. A one-party state, Cuba restricted nearly all avenues of political dissent… The government frequently silenced its critics by using short-term detentions, house arrests, travel restrictions, threats, surveillance, politically-motivated dismissals from employment, and other forms of harassment. Cuba’s legal and institutional structures were at the root of rights violations. The rights to freedom of expression, association, assembly, movement, and the press were strictly limited under Cuban law.” .
With the holding of presidential and legislative elections in Haiti in 2006, Cuba became the only state in the western hemisphere which was not a political democracy. Cuba has been suspended from the Organization of American States (OAS) since 1962. The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, an organ of the OAS, reported in 1997: “It should also be noted that the major criterion for preparing this report has been the lack of free elections in accordance with internationally accepted standards, thereby violating the right to political participation set forth in Article XX of the American Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man, which states textually that: Every person having legal capacity is entitled to participate in the government of his country, directly or through his representatives, and to take part in popular elections, which shall be by secret ballot, and shall be honest, periodic and free.”
Critics also point out that whatever the merits of the system for electing the National Assembly, that body is itself a facade for the reality of PCC rule in Cuba. The Assembly meets only twice a year for a few days. The 31-member Council of State, in theory elected by the Assembly but in practice appointed by the PCC, wields effective state power, and the PCC Politburo, as in all communists states, is the ultimate political authority. Although the Assembly has eight standing committees, they do not exercise any effective authority over legislation. During its biannual plenums, the Assembly plays a passive role as audience for various government speakers. Once the Council of State's legislative proposals have been presented, they are summarily ratified by unanimous or near unanimous vote of the Assembly.
Right of legislative proposals
Article #88(h) of the Cuban Constitution allows for legislative proposals backed by at least 10,000 citizens to be submitted directly to the National Assembly. In 2002, however, the government rejected a legislative proposal known as the Varela Project, supporters of which submitted 11,000 signatures calling for a national referendum on political and economic reforms. In response, the government arrested, charged and convicted dozens of activists in March 2003 who had participated in the project for "accepting illegal funding from the head of the United States special interest section in Havana." In October 2003, Project Varela organizers submitted a second legislative proposal to the National Assembly with an additional 14,000 signatures. The government rejected both of these legislative proposal per Article #75(b) of the Constitution.
Municipal elections
Municipal assemblies are elected every two and a half years. Municipal elections are officially non-partisan, but as with National Assembly elections, no candidate can express overt opposition to the Castro government or to the communist system. The last such elections were held on 17 April 2005. Turnout was reported to be 95.76%.