MEXICO CITY.- The Electoral Transparency organization under its DemoAmlat initiative will carry out an exercise with an electoral perspective, to register the participation of people residing outside of Cuba in the referendum on the Family Code to be held on September 25 on the island.
According to Electoral Transparency, it is “the first experience of diaspora organization from an electoral perspective.” Although in 2018 Cubans abroad were able to send their opinionseithernes on the Draft Constitution, which gave rise to the new constitution of the Cuban regime.
Electoral Transparency mentioned in a statement that it is carrying out this exercise to “make visible the restriction of these (electoral) rights and promote an exercise in citizen participation” among emigrants.
In order to participate in this symbolic exercise, interested persons must be Cuban and over 16 years of age. Registration will take place between September 15 and 25, and they must use their Cuban passport on the www.referendoeneexterior.com website.
To learn about this initiative, CubaNet spoke about it with Jesús Delgado, Coordinator of DemoAmlat and Director of Institutional Development of Electoral Transparency
How did you come up with this exercise? Do they do it in alliance or have they informed the exile organizations?
“After years of studying the Cuban electoral system and how it is designed to block genuine citizen participation, we consider it important that the diaspora, estimated at at least 2 million people, had a tool to carry out a citizen participation exercise that would link it with the political affairs of the Island. A principle that the Cuban regime violates but that is provided for in different international instruments.
“In the case of Cubans, they suffer a double exclusion: having forcibly left their country due to a model that prevents them from exercising their freedoms, and losing their right to vote once they leave Cuba.
“This platform intends to give voice to groups that are diverse, plural and that have different positions regarding the code, so that they can express them. Although its results are not binding since it is an initiative of the democratic forces, it will allow Cubans to position themselves with respect to the family code and start a process of registering residents abroad. .
“We have informed different exile organizations in Spain, the United States, Canada, Mexico, among others.”
According to the Latin American organization, the Cuban government, defined as an “autocracy” by Electoral Transparency, “prevents, through the requirement of “effective residence”, more than 2 million residents abroad from exercising their right to vote. According to the legislation, the only people outside the Island who enjoy this right are members of the government in diplomatic positions and their families, or those who are part of sports or health missions, among others.
How has this exercise been received by Cuban experts in the area? Have you had any response from Cubans outside the island?
“Reactions have been mostly positive. Many people abroad have clear positions regarding the Family Code and have an opportunity to express it on this platform. It has also been celebrated that through this initiative Cubans abroad become familiar with the exercise of the vote, even if it is symbolic, since it is a right that many have never been able to exercise freely.
“We have also noticed that some groups consider that participating in an exercise of this type can “legitimize” the regime and they remain firm that “in a dictatorship one does not vote”. The important thing is to highlight that they are not voting under a dictatorship, but with democratic, transparent and reliable rules and mechanisms, even though the election is non-binding.”
Do you have an estimate of the number of people who could participate? How do you plan to protect the data of the participants?
“We hope that hundreds of people can register and participate in this process. We have allowed registration even on the day of the election, considering that perhaps on that day a large part of Cuban women and Cubans abroad will be interested in the referendum and in this tool.
“The digital platform is provided by a company specialized in technological solutions for elections, which has held more than 2,000 elections in different countries of the region. They have clear policies regarding data security, vote secrecy, and election reliability. In the case of data protection, they are housed in a protected database, which requires double authentication to enter, and which can only be accessed from IPs defined by the company. (More information in https://referendoeneexterior.com/)”
The Cuban referendum has been told, among other things, that they put Human Rights to the vote, would you say that in this exercise they replicate that trait?
“The referendum celebrated by the Cuban regime referendum on human rights: puts in the hands of the majority the rights of minorities. Electoral Transparency and DemoAmlat consider that rights are not plebiscited, and that the Cuban government only submits the Code to a referendum for a strategy of pinkwashingsince nothing obliges him to endorse it and without consultation he has approved laws such as the Penal Code, which includes the death penalty, without worrying about the opinion of the citizenry.
“Now, the platform that we make available seeks to enable the diaspora to give their opinion on the Family Code. Being a vote that does not affect legislation, it does not have the potential to decide on the rights of minorities, but it does allow people to position themselves, and unlike Cuba, where only valid votes will be counted (Yes / No) , on the platform that we make available, people will be able to vote for approval, rejection, but also blank and null, which may be ways of rejecting the very nature of this referendum.
“These will be decisions that Cuban men and women will have to make when voting, but the objective is that regardless of the option they choose, they are part of an exercise in citizen participation in the political affairs of their country, a right that it has been taken from them for far too long.”
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