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4-19-05, 9:36 am
96% of Cubans Vote in municipal Elections
Havana –(Prensa Latina) Preliminary results showed that 8,168,253 Cubans, 96.27 percent, exercised their right to vote Sunday in the municipal elections.
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At a special meeting yesterday Cuban President Fidel Castro announced the participation stats, which were higher than last municipal elections at 95.75 percent.
The National Electoral Commission will shortly reveal the results of the first round in the elections to choose the delegates to the People´s Power Municipal Assembly (local governments).
The Cuban leader offered this information at the end of a speech at the International Conference Center of Havana in which he continued the analysis and denounced the presence of terrorist Luis Posada Carriles in the United States.
"We kept our word: we voted and now we will continue the battle," said Fidel Castro said before denouncing the new maneuvers by the US government to protect Luis Posada Carriles and other terrorists of Cuban origin.
Attendees at the gathering also included leaders of the Cuban Communist Party, the government and representatives from grassroots organizations and officers from the interior ministry and the armed forces.
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Small Town Elections, Reaching the Hills
Soroa, Cuba – (Prensa Latina) Modern technology, goodwill among election committee staffers and a sturdy mule help this mountain town´s voice be heard.
The peaceful chirp of a tocororo, Cuba's national bird, belies the frenetic activity below. Red, white and blue like the country´s flag, the feathered friend that sings to me on the empty trail above the Soroa waterfall may be the only one not at the Sunday polls.
Early in the morning I observed the voting station for about an hour, first speaking with Mayra Acosta Martinez, the 45 year-old president of the neighborhood electoral commission.
A veteran in different capacities of four elections, the optimistic volunteer said this year´s board has been just as diligent in getting out the vote as ever and that anyone too ill to make it can call in for home balloting.
Another staffer, Jorge Pilot 39, has worked five elections and says this year people are coming quickly and he hopes to get out sooner.
Soroa opened at 7 am, but some stations started as early as six to accommodate sugar cane workers and others.
Specialist Yamilin Gamez of the Candelaria municipality electoral commission´s computer science division says people have "become very demonstrative of their feelings regarding the level of attention delegates give their constituents, and are more willing than ever to change a delegate who´s not doing his or her job."
She says this year was "the first we did the whole process with computer technology. Before we used telephones, radio or people, but now we use a password-accessed webpage to file data. I think it´s a pretty safe system." Children are another security measure to make sure no adult tries to exert influence at polling places, and Merely Cordero Gutierrez, 10 years-old, is the chief of 8 children here. "We take care of the ballot boxes so people cast their vote correctly, and salute every time one is placed as a way to show our respect for the process. My youngest collaborator is 6 years old," she says.
Pedro Beauport, 58, a small farmer, says he´s participated in all elections, and they´re important because they represent a co-penetration between citizens and government.
Juana Carrillo Torres, 17 years-old, is a high school student and one of the youngest voting today.
"Elections are important," she says, because "if we don´t elect someone who will stick their neck out for us who will? I think my vote is valid."
--From Prensa Latina
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