[:es]Lawmaker Defends Democratic Nature of Cuban Elections[:]

Most countries are still working under the rules of the bourgeois democracy. That was quite revolutionary 200 years ago and opened the way to development. However, two centuries later, the bourgeoisie itself has learned how to violate its medullar principles, said the deputy in an interview with Prensa Latina.

Gonzalez rebuffed statements made last February by the Secretary General of the Organization of American States (OAS), Luis Almagro, who criticized Cuba’s political one-party system.

The arguments of the OEA official are weak, said Gonzalez and explained that as a custom it is said that democracy means the existence of several parties, which summon and participate in supposedly open elections.

‘That is false and mythic; Cuba does not have a system of many parties for historical and political reasons’, he argued and said that system did not meet the fundamental problems of this Antillean island, as a nation nor as a people, it only existed for a foreign power to influence the country.

That is not necessarily the paradigm of democracy. In Cuba there is only one party but it is not an electoral organization. Each citizen has the right to propose candidates in his place of residence, highlighted the deputy.

According to Gonzalez, another element is that in Cuba, people don’t have to have money to register, it is a right of each citizen when he turns the majority of age to vote and be nominated (16 years for Provincial Assemblies and 18 for member of Parliament).

He denounced that all those elements are omitted in the international scenario to defend the myth of the lack of democracy in this country.

The objective of the top oligarchy is that representatives of their interests reach government positions. For example, the case of Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva is persecuted for an alleged crime which has not been proven, he asserted.

While on the other side they have a head of government (Michel Temer) that accessed power through fraud promoted by people that did commit crimes and he himself is accused of corruption scandals, but is still in power, said the Cuban parliament member.

Even though the Cuban system can be improved, like any democratic process, I think contemporary history shows how perverted can be the pretended democratic system, as it is only a way to perpetuate capitalism, he concluded.

Next Sunday, March 11, Cuba will hold general elections to vote for provincial assemblies and parliament deputies which will later designate the President and the rest of the State Council,which will govern the country. (Prensa Latina)