Cuban Parliament President Stresses Significance of Full Slate Vote

Alarcon participated, along other Cuban electoral authorities, at Wednesday´s prime time TV show "The Roundtable", which was dedicated to the upcoming January 20 general elections on the island, in which the Cuban people will elect delegates to provincial assemblies and the deputies to the National Parliament.

The full slate vote is a strategy that guarantees the inclusion in all government bodies of political leaders, representatives of social, religious organizations as well as academics, artists, workers, students, housewives, retired people, men and women in general, blacks and whites, he said.

The Parliament President said that adopting such electoral strategy also guarantees the continuity of a political system in which all the people can exercise their right to vote and participate directly or indirectly in the nomination of candidates.

Those who are elected will have no personal privileges at all, as it has been the case of thousands of others already elected as district delegates, or provincial assembly delegates, or the deputies elected along more than 30 years, he stressed.

Alarcon said the men and women elected to assume legislative responsibilities have not even received a salary for that, and they must report about their work, while they can even be revoked at any time. He underscored the fact that in Cuba the vote is free, easy to exercise, while voters have the right to vote one, two, three or non of the candidates, they even may not vote if they do not want to.

The major reason to wish that the majority of the people vote for the full slate of candidates is the fact that in Cuba all citizens can vote, something, he said, that seems to be as commonplace and simple as the right to education and health care; however, said Alarcon, it is not the same in other parts of the world, like in the United States.

That whish is expressed in Cuba by means of the automatic, universal and free registration of voters; the list of voters is public and is under the people´s control, "because here we know who can vote and where," he said.

Ricardo Alarcon announced that the vote will take place in over 38, 000 voting stations, not on a weekday but on Sunday, while the vote is not compulsory.

Cubans are ready to elect the deputies to the National Parliament and delegates to provincial assemblies next January 20.