• Wide Angle Electoral theater in Cuba to recover lost legitimacy

"We are sovereign and independent. We do not accept anyone's interference in our affairs." Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel returned at full speed from the Ibero-American Summit in Santo Domingo (the only dictator in the region who attended the meeting supervised by Spain) to prolong what has been the most intense electoral campaign in more than six decades of revolution.

The one chosen by Raúl Castro knew in advance how much was at stake in the new Castro theater, because the legislative elections this Sunday in Cuba will not only serve to confirm the 470 congressmen of the National Assembly of People's Power, coming out of a list of 470 candidates. It was also a kind of referendum on his very controversial management, after being at the head of the country since 2018.

Of course, a referendum with trick thanks to the elections remotely controlled by the Communist Party of Cuba (PCC), the only one allowed on the island. The 470, including Raul Castro, the military chiefs, the main figures of the government and himself, will ratify Díaz-Canel at the head of the country as soon as the National Assembly is formed in April.

The results that are announced in the coming hours and his credibility in a sea of doubts will depend on how Díaz-Canel faces his second and last term, as is arranged by the architecture of power designed by his political godfather. For all that Castroism was at stake and for the lost legitimacy, the old revolutionary machinery was once again well oiled.

From early in the morning, despite the call to go early (Raúl was the first to do so at his polling station), the generalized apathy of a country that today faces the largest diaspora in its history was perceived. The campaign not to go to vote became strong through social networks, which forced State Security to focus its repression on those observers who tried to verify the unstoppable advance of abstention.

An atmosphere that contrasted with the first data provided by the National Electoral Council (CEN), who reported that in the first hours 3,382,992 voters had already deposited their ballot from a census of 8,120,720 voters, for 41.66% of the total.

"We must send the enemy that message of a united people," paraphrased Granma, the official bulletin of the PCC, to the great leader Fidel Castro. So that there was no doubt.

Neither did state agents, who from an early age harassed independent activists and journalists. The house of Zealandia Pérez Abreu, coordinator of the Cuban Commission for Electoral Defense (Cocude), woke up under siege. The same happened with members of Electoral Rights Observers (EAW) and Citizen Observers of Electoral Processes (COPE).

Other activists, such as Elsa Litsy Isaac, were arrested and even beaten. A good number suffered the expeditious cut of their Internet service, a classic in election or protest days.

"We have seen little affluence in popular neighborhoods such as Centro Habana and Alamar. The frequency is low at noon and if the rhythm is maintained the abstention can be tremendous this time. We'll see what happens in the end, the government pressures and does weird things so that people are somehow forced to participate. But I don't see any mood or electoral party, there is no such thing," Manuel Cuesta Morúa, vice president of the Democratic Transition Council, told EL MUNDO.

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  • Cuba
  • Fidel Castro
  • America