[:es]How are Top Government Leaders Elected in Cuba?[:]

Once constituted the Ninth Legislature, the Candidacy Commission will inform who are proposed to lead that instance.

Once that step is taken, the Council of State, representing the parliament between session periods, a list of candidates is equally proposed by the Candidates Commission, organ recognized by the Constitution and the Electoral Law.

At that moment, there is the possibility for deputies to change or not those proposals, and then it is approved by raised hands the candidates to be submitted to voting.

After that, by secret vote -as is the principle followed by the Cuban electoral system- are elected those who will make up the State Council and who will direct it, that is the president, first vicepresident, five vicepresidents and secretary.

These leaders, together with other 23 members, complete the 31 seats of the State Council of the Republic of Cuba.

Professor Esquivel, who worked in last March’s elections as coordinator of collaborators of the National Electoral Commission, also referred to the general characteristics of the mechanism.

The electoral system and the organs included in that mechanism come from a sum of historical conditions that feed the constitutional and electoral processes, said the specialist.

She added that, nevertheless, no electoral system should be considered as ‘more or less democratic’, because each one belongs and is conditioned by its own characteristics that a determined country has at a specific moment.

In the case of Cuba, there are two ways of electing our representatives: in a direct form for the case of delegates to the municipal and provincial assemblies of the People’s Power, as also the deputies to the National Assembly; and in an indirect form for the members of the State Council, detailed the jurist.

According to Esquivel, if it is true the citizen elects directly the deputies to Parliament, it is those representatives who then have the duty to elect the State Council, representative group of the final constitutional organ of the country, that is, the People’s Power National Assembly, becoming center of the Cuban State. (Prensa Latina)