Another Staged Act is what Cuba Calls "Elections"
By Roger Rubio Lima
 The Cuban government is preparing another staged act. It is one of those fantasies that drive millions of people to participate in an enormous lie that they call “elections”. With a simplified realism as it’s scenery, the actors, critics, and spectators will all be played by the same people: citizens 16 years of age or older, or better said, with the right to vote. They will participate in a moment of suffrage that they will not comprehend because of nearly 50 years of civic ‘darkness’, of brainwashing citizens into a communist ideology and of an civil illiteracy that has converted people into citizens of a country that has no real nor ‘apparent’ democracy.
According to the current electoral law, the candidates for representative at the Municipal Assemblies of the Popular Power are nominated by the electors in public assemblies at the corresponding district. However, the candidates for representative at the Provincial Assemblies and the candidates for member of the National Assembly of the Popular Power, are nominated by each Municipal Assembly of the Popular Power and take into consideration only those proposed by the National and Provincial Candidates Committee. The electors, according to the current law, do not participate directly in the nominations of these candidates. For example, if a certain municipality has the right to choose from five members to the National Assembly to the Popular Power, on the electoral ballot they will only see five candidates, and so choose one, some, all, or none of those five. The electors cannot participate in choosing those five (from a greater number of candidates) that the population will choose from. In the elections for representative to the Municipal Assembly, the electors from each district are chosen by each elector voting for only one representative: who he/she chooses among many who aspire to represent that district.
Like I mentioned before, there exists only one candidate for each position, per district, at both the national and provincial levels. Therefore, there will be as many candidates running for representative in each municipality, one per district, as open positions. If choosing, according to the ‘Real Academia Española’ dictionary, is having preference over someone for a specific purpose, and at the same time, it is have that preference over various other choices of candidates, then one cannot speak of real elections in Cuba. In Cuba, the electors do not choose those who will speak for them as candidates for representative for the provincial assemblies, or for the candidates for representative at the national assembly of the Popular Power.
The only thing electors really do is ratify (or not) the decision already made by the Candidates Committee, and this ratification does not alter the result at the end of the process. Therefore, what the government calls “elections” is really just a stage play with the purpose of giving a monarchy the absolute appearance of a republic.
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The Youth of the 21st Century
By Roger Rubio Lima
The Cuban youth of the 21st Century is a worry for those who govern our country because as the great Latin American thinker José Ingenieros said, the youth "are not tied down by commitments to the past." The Cuban youth detest a retrograde regime that closes the world's doors to them and keeps them without freedoms. The thousands of youth that risk their lives at sea attempting to reach the United States are proof of this. The Cuban youth do not feel threatened by the generous country that takes them in when they reach its shores, and offers a life worth living. Those who govern Cuba are aware of this and this is why they worry.
Cuba's youth does not have access to the Internet. To study, we must fake our participation as revolutionaries. When we express ourselves freely we are expelled from the university, like in my case. My name is Roger Rubio Lima, and in 2002 I was expelled from the University of Camagüey because I signed the Varela Project. The Varela Project is an initiative that asks for change in our laws and was signed by more than 25,000 Cubans. This proves the level of control that this failed system has over the youth, and how terrified they are to think that the Cuban youth will want change once their old leaders disappear.
The youth are the hope for the people, and Cuba's youth are Cuba's hope. The youth in Cuba applauded Pope John Paul II when he said: "The creation of a new society in which the noblest dreams are not frustrated and in which you can be the principal agents of your own history should not be left for tomorrow." The Cuban youth want to be authors of our own history, this is why we are feared by the old leaders who refuse to admit their time is long gone.
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