Brazil's Lula says he will work for 'democracy in Cuba'

[Judi Lynn]

Brazil's Lula says he will work for 'democracy in Cuba'
Monday, April 11, 2005
BRASILIA, Brazil (AFP): Brazil's leftist President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has said he will work "for democracy in Cuba" and "against the (US economic) blockade" of the communist-run island, the newspaper Folha de Sao Paulo reported Saturday.

"We have a lot to do for democracy in Cuba. We must help in the struggle against the US economic blockade (sanctions). Brazil has a chance to help normalize Cuba's relations," Lula told the daily in Rome, where he attended the funeral of Pope John Paul II.

Lula, of the Workers' Party, made his remarks after meeting at Brazil's embassy in Rome with Cuban National Assembly speaker Ricardo Alarcon. The Brazilian president has a cordial relationship, but no great political kinship, with Cuban President Fidel Castro, whose lone major ally in the region is Venezuela's leftist-populist President Hugo Chavez.

Cuba is the only one-party communist state in the Americas.
(snip/)

http://www.caribbeannetnews.com/2005/04/11/democracy.shtml

[aneerkoinos]

1. Cuba

I don't think Cuba will ever abandon socialism. And one-party democracy is not necessarily worse than multi-party democracy.

What I would really like is no-party democracy, no-governement, no-president democrasy, no-ruler democracy. Like real democracy, dude!

[Mika]

3. That is what Cuba has

http://www.poptel.org.uk/cuba-solidarity/democracy.htm

This system in Cuba is based upon universal adult suffrage for all those aged 16 and over. Nobody is excluded from voting, except convicted criminals or those who have left the country. Voter turnouts have usually been in the region of 95% of those eligible .

There are direct elections to municipal, provincial and national assemblies, the latter represent Cuba's parliament.

Electoral candidates are not chosen by small committees of political parties. No political party, including the Communist Party, is permitted to nominate or campaign for any given candidates.

You can read a short version of the Cuban system here,
http://members.allstream.net/~dchris/CubaFAQDemocracy.html

Or a long and detailed version here,
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0968508405/qid=1053879619/sr=1-2/ref=sr_1_2/102-8821757-1670550?v=glance&s=books

[bemildred]

4. If you really want to know what makes the beltway boys twitchy about Cuba

it's this:

"No political party, including the Communist Party, is permitted to nominate or campaign for any given candidates."

Now that is election reform.

[Mika]

5. Open nominations, paper ballots - counted in public too. Fancy that.

:hi:

http://members.allstream.net/~dchris/CubaFAQ025.html

Cuba's integrated approach, however, gets as many people as possible involved in the electoral process from the very start--beginning with the public nomination meetings for municipal deputies, right up to the final vote for the National Assembly. This level of participation is something to be applauded.

By contrast, in the USA, where there is no such public nomination process, the role of the public in the electoral process is one of almost total passivity. The vast majority are actively involved only in the final vote. And even then, the majority often abstains from even this limited role!

With the safeguards built into it, the Cuban system seems to me to be a more democratic alternative. It is certainly no less democratic. If someone or some faction can't make it past this process, it can only be that they would not have sufficient public support in any case.

____


www.stopbolton.org

[w4rma]

2. Good for President Lula. (nt)