MIAMI, United States. — The non-governmental organization Electoral Transparency called for a collection of signatures to demand free elections in Cuba.
Through a statement, the NGO criticized the monopoly of the ballot box in Cuba during the last decades, controlled by the Communist Party of Cuba (PCC).
“In Cuba you vote, but you don’t choose. During the last decades, Cubans have been summoned to the polls to endorse the leaders preselected by the Communist Party of Cuba (PCC), and not to choose from a wide range of parties, candidates and programs, as happens in democratic regimes. Electoral Transparency pointed out.
According to the organization, in Cuba “ordinary people cannot influence the political affairs of their country, which violates the rights enshrined in international instruments for the protection of human rights.”
“The decision-making positions are reserved for those who are part of or are loyal to the single party. The electoral system is designed to maintain the hegemony of the PCC,” the statement said.
Electoral Transparency recalled that the elections for the National Assembly of People’s Power (ANPP), the Cuban legislative body, will be held on March 26 and naturally only has representation from the Communist Party.
“In these ‘elections’ there are 470 candidates for 470 seats, so the election only serves to endorse the selection made by the party. In such a way that the body that should represent a plural, complex society and with diverse demands is co-opted by the single party that has kidnapped power for more than 60 years”.
Given this scenario, the NGO, together with the project DemoAmlat —whose central mission is the commitment to strengthening democracy in the region—, called on people and organizations “to sign a statement to demand that the right of Cubans to freely elect their political representatives be respected.”
“Since people in Cuba do not have instances that protect their rights, we call on those who are committed to democratic values to demand that the Cuban government respect the political and civil rights provided for in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which Cuba signed and ratified, so that they can associate politically, demonstrate, express themselves and compete in a context of equal conditions in the electoral arena”.
In this sense, Electoral Transparency made it clear that “free and democratic political participation and unrestricted respect for human rights is the only way out of the deep Cuban crisis.”
