"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 to attend 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 Popular Power, drawn from a list of 470 candidates. It was also a kind of referendum on his highly controversial management, after leading the country since 2018.
Of course, a tricky referendum thanks to the remote-controlled elections by the Communist Party of Cuba (PCC), the only one allowed on the island. The 470, among whom are Raúl Castro, the military chiefs, the main figures of the government and himself, will ratify Díaz-Canel as head of the country as soon as the National Assembly is formed in April.
The results that will be announced in the next few hours and its credibility in a sea of doubts will depend on how Díaz-Canel faces his second and last term, as arranged by the architecture of power designed by his political godfather. Because of all that Castroism was at stake and because of 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 general 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, forcing State Security to focus its repression on those observers who wanted to verify the unstoppable progress of abstention.
An environment that contrasted with the first data provided by the National Electoral Council (CEN), who reported that in the first hours 3,382,992 voters out of a census of 8,120,720 voters had already cast their ballots, for 41.66% of the voters. total.
"You have to send that message of a united people to the enemy," paraphrased Granma, the official bulletin of the PCC, to the great leader Fidel Castro. So that there would be no doubt.
Neither did state agents, who harassed activists and independent journalists from very early on. 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 (ODE) and Citizen Observers of Electoral Processes (COPE).
Other activists, like Elsa Litsy Isaac, were detained and even beaten. A good number suffered the expeditious cut of their Internet service, a classic on election days or protests.
"We have seen little influx in popular neighborhoods such as Centro Habana and Alamar. The frequency is low at noon and if the rate is maintained, the abstention could be tremendous this time. We will see what happens in the end, the Government pressures and does strange things so that the people are somehow forced to participate. But I don't see any spirit or electoral party, there is none of that," Manuel Cuesta Morúa, vice president of the Democratic Transition Council, assured EL MUNDO.
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