Fact-checking AP and AFP reports on Cuban elections this Sunday

Look, I know that there are many adverse criteria to the organization of politics in Cuba and its practical development, but my thing is the facts, and all value judgments, in any case, have to stick to them. AP didn't answer me but since then I have been followed on Twitter by its correspondents here and by those in charge of editorial policy in Latin America. It seemed inconceivable to me that such a prestigious journalistic organization would fall into an information rut in line with the diatribe circulating about Cuba.

Fact-checking

I now have before me two recent reports on tomorrow Sunday's elections in Cuba, signed by AP and the French agency AFP, the oldest in the world. In both of them, I detect crass errors that I am going to deal with immediately, as part of a constant work that corresponds to all of us, which is to verify absolutely everything we consume, whatever the source, even that which for us is already a registered trademark.

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Claim # 1 (AP)

Now, half of the 470 candidates come from municipal assemblies. The other 50% are recognized personalities proposed by trade unions and social organizations such as the Women's Federation or the small farmers' association. The list is consolidated based on the work of candidacy commissions.

Here we are talking about the two tributaries that have the conformation of the candidacy for deputies (congressmen) in Cuba. In the first place, up to 50% must come from the base delegates in the municipalities (councilmen) who were elected at the end of last year. It isn't 50% but 47.02% (221) of the candidacy that corresponds to this political figure. And this is not a minor error, because this issue contains a controversial point since the law doesn't privilege that these delegates to whom people propose, nominate, and elect directly are a majority with respect to the rest of the candidates, which would be those of provincial and national interest but that are proposed and nominated through a less democratic and open process. I have dealt at length with the Cuban electoral system and its gaps and implementation debts here.

The other error in what AP states in that paragraph is in the last sentence. The candidacy commissions referred to are in charge of coordinating the nomination process, but this is closed by the base delegates in their respective municipal assemblies. It is they who are in charge of approving and in effect nominating the candidacy proposal made by the referred commissions, which in truth are also polemic actors within the electoral process.

Claim # 2 (AP)

In practice, the [National] Assembly [the Cuban national Congress] usually approves the initiatives of the Communist Party, the only party with legal status on the island and whose mandate is to lead the island's socialist system. The new Assembly will take office on April 19 and the same day will vote for the country's new president.

The problem here lies in the absence of a term that was the subject of popular discussion in the process of approval of the 2019 Constitution. AP says that the Communist Party is in charge of leading the socialist system, but what the Constitution says is that it is its superior leading political force. Without referring that the direction is political, it seems that it is licit to assume that the law would be leaving an open door to the fact that the role of the Party can also be administrative. The latter as something that occurs in practice is a matter of discussion, but it is important to have the key concepts very clear because in any case, they offer a constitutional way to correct any anomaly in the functioning of the system.

Before 2019, the leadership of the Party didn't have that limitation that implies saying that its leading role is limited to the political. I like to say that it is in charge of defining how much bandwidth there is to govern according to the presumption of consensus, but the Constitution is clear in defining what corresponds to each institution, in this case to the Parliament as the supreme organ of State power.

Claim # 3 (AFP)

Fifty percent of the 470 candidates for the National Assembly of People's Power were appointed by the current deputies and the other half by municipal commissions.

Here we are talking about a more egregious and unforgivable error. If you have been following me, you will be able to find the mistake on your own. AFP falls into the absurdity of affirming that part of the candidacy for deputies has been nominated by themselves constituted as National Assembly (I have used indistinctly this denomination, which is registered in Cuban legislation, and Parliament or National Congress so that it's understood which institution I am referring to according to the terminology used in your respective countries).

And to make matters worse, AFP tells us that the rest have been nominated by municipal [candidacy] commissions, that is, it doesn't take into account the role of the municipal assemblies, which are the true ones in charge of nominating all the candidates as appropriate. Remember that it's the source in the conformation of the candidacy proposal, which the candidacy commissions do carry out according to the territorial level, the thing that marks the difference here.

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Final comments

These have been huge mistakes from my point of view when explaining the Cuban electoral system, though some people could find them on a lower scale. Not for me and I tried to argue why. What I do agree with the approaches I found in AP and AFP about tomorrow's elections is that the abstention rate will be a sort of political barometer, at a time of special tension on the island, mainly due to the state of the economy. I will be reviewing the results and making my assessment next Monday, in the corresponding issue of The Latin American Report. By the way, I will also comment on the 28th Ibero-American Summit of Heads of State and Government that started yesterday and ends today in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. Thank you very much for your attention and I wish you a happy day.