Fidel Castro: Vote by Slate Expresses Unity

In a message sent to the prime-time TV show ’The Round Table’, Fidel
Castro noted that all Cuban citizens have the right to vote for the
candidates of their preference, but he stressed that voting for the
entire list of candidates expresses the Cuban people’s unity of action.

On Sunday, January 20, the Cuban people will cast their ballots for
members of the provincial assemblies and the national parliament.

Fifty percent of the candidatures were first nominated as
representatives in their voting districts and later elected to the city
councils. Another part of the candidates was chosen by civic and labor
organizations based on their social, labor and educational backgrounds.

Fidel Castro underscored in his message the 49th anniversary of the
victorious arrival of the rebel army in Havana, remembered in Cuba on
Tuesday. He recalled the rally held back in 1959, at the Columbia
Military Camp and the presence there of the late Commander Camilo
Cienfuegos as well as other details about the important date in Cuban
history.

The Cuban leader also referred to the main topic analyzed during the TV
Round Table discussion, the "escape" of US President George Bush to the Middle East, where he will pay propaganda-aimed visits. He said it was a miracle that Bush’s naval escort did not fire on Iranian boats that
were on their own coasts.

Fidel Castro recalled that a prominent publishing house launched the
first English edition of the book ’Biography in two Voices’ or ’One
Hundred Hours with Fidel’. He also drew attention to his own
reflections published earlier Tuesday by the Cuban media in which he
stresses the exemplary personality of Chilean Elena Pedraza, a
prominent Physical Rehabilitation specialist who collaborated with Cuba
for a long time and whom he dubbed ’an exemplary communist.’