This Cubans They will go to the polls this Sunday. To determine the members of the National People’s Power Assembly (ANPP). Selections on the island are marked as follows: institutional and political singularities. On the one hand, there is no opposition party, no election campaign. Nor the television debates. The big question for analysts is about the possible. level of abstention in a country characterized by near-absolute unanimity, which has since last year begun to express its discontent through the ballot box.
Selections take m in ordercrisis ship and put more skeptical than ever that the state promises horizons of social redemption. Last year alone, 270,000 people, or 2.4% of the population, left the island. Inflation, cuts and shortages, which are 175% in 2022, keep the pulse of the call for 470 deputies.
Officially, Cubans they can vote for as many candidates as they can see The Candidacy Commission, which brought together different official institutions, gave the green light to the candidates. There are no opposing candidates. The Government of President Miguel Díaz Canel has called for all applicants to mark with an “x” for a seat. “The joint vote of all our parliamentary candidates, work of conscience“, the newspaper argues “Grandmother”The official organ of the Communist Party (PCC). Authorities consider a high level of adherence to this principle to be a show of support for a political and economic direction in which the streets are increasingly being questioned. The discomfort is often voiced on social media.
new breakups
The mobile phone has become a kind of virtual grandstand where advice circulates to turn our backs on elections. In Cuba, abstention was low. However, in the municipal elections held last November, 30 percent of the voters stayed at home. Nothing like this had happened since the Castro revolution was institutionalized in the 1970s. The National Electoral Council (CEN), chaired by Alina Balseiro, did not respond to requests from independent observers of the day.
The government has redoubled its call for a society that shows signs of selfishness and burnout in the last hours. Even children watch the ballot box As representatives of their organizations, Pioneers.
complex picture
Cuba will grow 3 percent this yearaccording to the most benign estimates, but Without solving the inflation problem. This increase in GDP will not be enough to heal the deep social wounds experienced in recent years. Prime Minister Manuel Marrero Cruz said: “Porn carries negative risks, projections suggest that slowing world growth could significantly affect prices of essential products.”
This US sanctions to complicate the picture even more. Economist Pedro Monrea warned, “The inputs we import are becoming more expensive due to the insufficient improvement in foreign exchange revenues.” The government has bet on tourism all or nothing. However, hotel occupancy rates are very low on the island, at 15.6%, compared to an overall 52% elsewhere in the Caribbean.
September 11 footprints
Another factor invites connoisseurs to take a closer look at these ANNP selections: Social epidemic of July 11, 2021 and summer 2022 protests, marked with blackouts. The first had a strong youth and popular component. In a few hours, it will become clear whether events unprecedented in more than sixty years will leave their mark on the polls. Another novelty compared to previous experiences concerns the painted walls in Havana with anti-government slogans. They were few in number, but the Cuban record is outstanding.
The circumstances leading up to 9/11 did not change significantly. Essayist Alina Bárbara López Hernández said on the website ‘La Joven Cuba’ that it was the result of the epidemic. Decades of bad administrative decisions, wrong public policies, cuts in social spending, weakening of social justice and the incompetence and arrogance of a political class characterized by its lack of connection with the citizens, both in its private way of life and in its discourse and projection”.
López Hernandez, The weight of hostility towards the USA. However, “the real factors of the Cuban crisis erosion of the bureaucratic model of socialism Because of the same irreconcilable contradiction that failed their European counterparts. And one party has yet to do a political analysis of the situation.”
Since turmoil hit the streets, the government’s behavior – adds Hernández – has been “superficial as it focuses not on addressing the causes of the overall crisis but rather on mitigating specific secondary effects. Nor has it opened horizontal channels of communication. The contrast between overtly demagogic political discourse and the everyday reality in which we live is increasingly clear. becomes”. Elections will test this diagnosis.