CUBA: Cuban opposition falls at first hurdle as Castro handover looms!

HAVANA: Cuban opposition leaders said they failed to get anyone nominated as a candidate for municipal elections, falling at the first hurdle as the Communist-run island embarks on a political cycle that will end 60 years of Castro brothers’ rule.
This month’s municipal elections are the first stage in a process that will conclude with a new national assembly voting in February for a president to replace 86-year-old Raul Castro, who has promised to step down after two five-year terms.
Some Cubans hope the handover of power from the leaders of the 1959 revolution to a new generation will bring more political openness. Others neither expect nor want much to change, pointing out that Castro will remain head of the Communist Party, the only legal party in Cuba.In the one part of Cuba’s political cycle where dissidents stand a chance of winning, neighbourhood nomination assemblies have in recent weeks chosen candidates for elections to 12,515 ward positions in towns across the nation of 11 million people.
Several hundred dissidents had sought nomination — an unprecedented number — although none made it through to the list of 27,221 candidates, according to opposition electoral platforms Otro18 and Candidates for Change.
Dissident leaders blamed their failure partly on repressive tactics by authorities, but said they had shown there were viable political alternatives.
“The process of democratisation from below has started,” said Manuel Cuesta Morua, spokesman for Otro18.
The government did not reply to a request for comment. Reuters was unable to verify the opposition’s figures and their efforts were not reported by state-run media, meaning most ordinary Cubans did not hear about them.
In Cuba’s provincial and national votes, candidates are nominated by commissions composed of representatives of Communist Party-controlled organisations such as the trade union federation.
Cuba’s leaders say the country’s elections are more democratic than western models, which they say are characterised by big business and corruption. The fractured opposition has traditionally called Cuban elections a farce and boycotted them.
Even so, opposition electoral platforms have emerged over the past few years, saying the time is ripe to change Cuba from within the system.
The election comes at a delicate time, as Cuba battles to keep a detente with the United States alive and its economy afloat as aid from key ally Venezuela dwindles.
Several dissidents said that authorities prevented them from attending or speaking at neighbourhood nomination assemblies, shifting the dates or seeking to intimidate them.
“State security threatened me,” said Abdel Legra, who decided against nominating himself as he did not want to get his neighbours, most of whom work for the state, in trouble by backing him. — Reuters