The Cuban political system is based on neighborhood assemblies where everyone who lives in the neighborhood gathers to discuss local issues and elect delegates to the next-higher level assembly.  All elections are no-party elections, and there are independent delegates at all levels, including the National Assembly. Fidel Castro remains leader only because he is re-elected every few years.

         These are some of the characteristics of the Cuban electoral system.  This mail also includes an extract from the World Bank’s latest report on Cuba.

        Characteristics of the Cuban political and electoral system:

1. Universal, automatic, and free voter registration for all citizens with the right to vote, from 16 years of age.

2. Direct nomination of candidates by the voters themselves in public assemblies (in many countries the political parties nominate the candidates).

3. Non-existence of discriminatory, expensive, offensive, defamatory, and manipulated electoral campaigns.

4. Absolutely clean and transparent elections.  The ballot boxes are guarded by children and young pioneers [like our boy scouts] are sealed in the presence of the population, and the votes are counted in public, open to national and foreign press, diplomats, tourists, and everyone who wishes.

5. The requirement that election be by majority. A candidate is elected only upon receiving more than 50% of valid votes cast.  If this result is not achieved in the first round, the top two vote-getters will go to a second round.

6. The voting is free, equal, and secret. All Cuban citizens have the right to vote and to be elected.  As there is no party list, votes are cast directly for the desired candidate.

7. All representative bodies of state power are elected and replaceable.

8. All elected officials must account for their actions.

9. All elected officials can be recalled at any time during their term.

10. Legislators are not professionals, and as such do not receive a salary.

11. A high rate of public participation in elections. In every election since 1976, more than 95% of those eligible have voted. In the last election for Deputies in 1998, 98.35% voted. 94.98% of the ballots cast were valid, 1.66% were annulled, and only 3.36% were blank.  [Blank ballots are considered to be votes against the system, and invalid ballots are widely viewed in a similar manner, though as we saw in Florida they may also result from voter error.]

12. Deputies to the National Assembly (Parliament) are elected for a term of 5 years.

13. The make-up of the Parliament is representative of the most diverse sectors of Cuban society.

14. One deputy is elected for every 20,000 inhabitants or fraction over 10,00.  All municipal territories are represented in the National Assembly, and the nuclear base of the system, the electoral circumscription, actively participates in its composition.  Every municipality will elect at least two deputies, and beyond that a number in proportion to the population. 50% of the deputies must be delegates of the electoral circumscriptions, and those delegates must live in the territory of that circumscription.  [The electoral circumscription is the lowest-level (i.e. local) elected body.]

15. The national Assembly elects the Council of State and its president, who in turn is both Head of State and Head of Government.  This means that the Head of Government must be elected twice: first by popular vote as a deputy, in free, direct, and secret vote, and then by the deputies, also in a free, direct, and secret vote.

16. As the National Assembly is the supreme organ of state power, and the legislative, executive, and judicial functions are subordinate to it, the Head of State and Government cannot dissolve it.

17. Legislative initiative is the privilege of multiple actors of the society, not just the deputies, the Supreme Court, and the Fiscalía, [This word can mean either Treasury or Prosecutor's Office.  I do not know in which sense the author is using it.] but also of workers', students', women's, and social organizations as well as the citizens themselves, requiring in this case that at least 10,000 citizens with the right to vote exercise the initiative.

18. Laws are submitted to a majority vote of the deputies.  What is specific to the Cuban method is that a law is not brought to a discussion of the plenum until such time, by means of repeated consultations with the deputies, and taking into account the proposals they have made, as has been clearly demonstrated that there is majority consent for its discussion and approval.  The application of this concept acquires greater relevance when it involves the participation of the population, together with the deputies, in the analysis and discussion of strategic issues.  In these occasions the Parliament moves to centers of labor, of students, giving life to direct and participative democracy.

         The above manifests the essence of Cuban democracy, of the system instituted, endorsed, and supported by the immense majority of Cubans.
 

The following is an extract from the World Bank's website:

By CARL ROSENTHAL

      The May 30 release of the World Bank's 2001 edition of "World Development Indicators" (WDI) was the occasion for some raised eyebrows in ruling-class circles when it demonstrated that revolutionary Cuba had topped virtually all other poor countries as well as some of the advanced capitalist nations in health and education indices.

     World Bank President James Wolfensohn was compelled to concede that Cuba had done "a good job" in meeting the social welfare needs of its people.

     At a time when poverty, disease, and illiteracy are on the rise and as World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) structural adjustment programs demand social cutbacks and profiteering privatizations as a condition for aid, Cuba, with no aid and a nationalized economy designed to meet human needs not profit, has actually improved its performance in both areas.

     Aside from North Korea(WHICH IS ALSO A SOCIALIST STATE), Cuba is the one  country that has not received World Bank aid or counsel.  Cuba continues to set an example for the world despite a 41-year U.S. economic blockade and continuous U.S. support to Miami-based anti-Cuban terrorists, as well as the cessation a decade ago of favorable trade agreements with Russia and Eastern Europe.

     Eric Swanson, the program manager for the Bank's Development Data Group, which compiled the 400-page 2001 report covering scores of economic, social, and environmental indicators, stated, "Cuba is in some sense almost an anti-model" for the World Bank's nostrum of progress through private enterprise.

     Health care and education are FREE to all in Cuba; foreign capitalist investors are allowed the minimum of operating room and are under tight government scrutiny; virtually all staples and commodities are subsidized and readily available; rent does not exist for some 90 percent of the population, and no one pays more than 5 percent of their monthly income for rent; and Cuba's currency is not really convertible.

     Cuba's record of social achievement has not only been sustained; it's been enhanced, according to the WDI.  Infant mortality rate has been reduced from 11 per 1000 births in 1990 to seven in 1999, which places it firmly in the ranks of the Western industrialized nations.

     Jo Ritz, the World Bank's Vice President for Development Policy, who visited Cuba in an unofficial capacity several months ago, noted that Cuba stands sixth in the world in this category.

     The infant mortality rate for Argentina stood at 18 in 1999; Chile's was down to 10; and Costa Rica, 12.  For the entire Latin American and Caribbean region as a whole, the average was 30 in 1999.

     Similarly, the mortality rate for children under five in Cuba has fallen from 13 to eight per thousand over the decade.  That figure is 50 percent lower than the rate in Chile, the Latin American country closest to Cuba's achievement.  For the region as a whole, the average was 38 in 1999.

     "Six for every 1000 in infant mortality-the same level as Spain-is just unbelievable," according to Ritz, a former education minister in the Netherlands.  "You observe it, and so you see that Cuba has done exceedingly well in the human development area."

     Indeed, in Ritz's own field the figures tell much the same story. Net primary enrollment for both girls and boys reached 100 percent in 1997, up from 92 percent in 1990.  That was as high as in most developed nations, higher even than the U.S. rate and well above 80-90 percent rates achieved by the most advanced Latin American countries.

     "Even in education performance, Cuba's is very much in tune with the developed world, and much higher than schools in, say, Argentina, Brazil, or Chile," says Ritz.

     Public spending on education in Cuba amounts to about 6.7 percent of gross national income, twice the proportion in other Latin America and Caribbean nations.  There were 12 primary pupils for every Cuban teacher in 1997, a ratio that ranked with Sweden, rather than with any other developing country.  The Latin American and East Asian average was twice as high, at 25 to one.

     The average youth (ages 15-24) illiteracy rate in Latin America and the Caribbean stands at seven percent.  In Cuba, the rate is zero.  Only Uruguay approaches that rate, with one percent youth illiteracy.

     Cuba devoted 9.1 percent of its gross domestic product (GDP) during the 1990s to health care, roughly equivalent to Canada's rate. Its ratio of 5.3 doctors per 1000 people was the highest in the world.

     Wayne Smith, who headed the U.S. Interests Section in Havana in the late 1970s and early 1980s and who has traveled to Cuba many times since, noted at the April 30 World Bank/IMF meeting, "Doctors in Cuba can make more driving cabs and working in hotels, but they don't.  They're just very dedicated."

     On July 26, Cuba will celebrate the 41st anniversary of a socialist revolution that ended imperialist rule for the first time in Latin America and opened a new chapter in social progress.

     Cuba dedicated the first year of its revolution to a program to eliminate illiteracy.  Within two years it had nationalized imperialist property and embarked on a socialist course that for the first time in its history placed the satisfaction of human needs on the order of the day.

     Under conditions of a U.S.-imposed worldwide blockade and shunned, Cuba has set an example for the world."