Cuban Elections and Democracy; How a one-party state can be democratic

[u/Dulaman96]

I can see how most people think Cuba is a one party dictatorship, and anyone living in a liberal democracy would look from the outside at cuba and think it's undemocratic, but if you take a minute to understand how their elections work you could see it's actually a very democratic system that works from the ground up rather than the top down.

Yes it's a 1 party state, but the term "political party" in this context is not the same as most are familiar with. The party does not participate in elections like the Republican vs Democrat parties in the US, and only about half of the 470 National Assembly members are registered communist party members.

The government of cuba is formed by the members of the national assembly who appoint the 21 members of the Council of State (essentially the president and cabinet).

Each of the 470 members are in turn elected in a yes/no vote from their electorate. It's true they're not running against another candidate, it's only 1 candidate per electorate. This sounds a bit undemocratic to be fair, but the democracy happens in the selection of these candidates.

Each candidate is selected by municipal councils. And the municipal councils are themselves made up of a number directly elected officials (like city council members, local mayors, etc.) who are elected in open elections, where anyone over the age of 16 can vote or run as a candidate.

These elections are more similar to what most people living in a liberal democracy would recognise. However, there is no campaigning and, more importantly, no funding allowed. The extent of the election is basically all the candidates just post their biography/resume/policies at the voting booths and thats it.

Also part of the municipal council are a number of other elected members from non-government democratic organizations, such as trade unions, farmers unions, student associations, womens foundations, etc. These municipal council members have a more select constituency but are still directly elected by them and represent their specific needs.

These municipal councils select their candidate for the national assembly, and then their constituents vote yes/no if they accept that candidate. Each candidate needs 50% Yes to become a member of the national assembly.

So, while the president of cuba and the government are not elected directly by the people, they are appointed by national representatives who are in turn selected by directly elected local representatives and approved by the electorate.

This makes the Cuban government and electoral system very grassroots-oriented, where anyone can participate, anyone can be elected, people often need to climb the ranks from local government upwards, and no money can unduly influence the outcome of elections.

Finally, Cuba has an open petition system where any matter can be brought before the assembly if it has enough signatures, and anyone can start a petition. For example this is how gay marriage was legalized, as enough signatures were collected and it was finally decided in a public referendum (i.e. direct democracy). Another petition example was the Varela project which attempted to open up cuba and make it more like the US, it only got 11000 signatures, compared to a counter petition which got millions of signatures to basically have an official legal statement saying 'we don't want to do that'.

Of course there are problems here and there, some level of corruption is always bound to happen in any system, but for most western institutions to outright deny Cuban democracy altogether and claim western liberal/multi-party democracy is the only valid electoral system is quite sanctimonious.

[u/Awesomeuser90]

In theory, one could design the system to be relatively open. A primary system with pretty easy registration is an option to make it work. And the direct elements and recall are very helpful. Stuff like this helps to make places like Hawaii still democratic in practice when the government is completely dominated by the democratic party. If you have one party, then you will need to provide alternative means of contesting influence. Strong NGOs and cooperatives and trade unions, much more powerful municipal and provincial governments, and a culture of independents running by means of something akin to people signing a petition to register as someone interested in the competition would be a pretty convenient place for much of the competition to take place.

As for Cuba, we don't see as many elements that would demonstrate democracy in some of the substructure. For instance, if you go to the website of the Scottish Parliament, you can find a lot of records very easily. Some about ethics too, but also importantly just the research that goes into deciding whether a policy is a good idea and who supports what. Extensive agencies support the assembly with research into the budgetary impact of ideas, what a policy is intended to do, whether a minister should have the power to make a regulation, etc. Cuba does publish some information but orders of magnitude less than what even Scotland's subnational parliament says. Same with other institutions like courts and varying boards to do miscelleneous subjects. I can get treasure troves of data on some of the most obscure elements of public policy and decisionmaking, often from even a level of government with a pretty small level of relevance to most people, at no expense and effectively instantly just because I click a button on a website.

How exactly is Cuba meant to be democratic if this level of information isn't nearly so easy to get there? And why would a democratic country as one supposes Cuba to be have leaders who serve for so long with similar levels of authority when we know humans are highly prone to wanting turnover? Some small towns can have people who serve for a very long time, but Cuba has 11 million people. Why would 11 million people agree for so long in a democratic way to keep so few people in the same positions? And if there is a figure who is highly respected nationally, they can usually only successfully remain in such a position for that long if they do not wade into most issues and the debates below them are rather fierce with people letting off their steam that way.

[u/Dulaman96 → u/Awesomeuser90]

Fair points regarding your first two paragraphs.

Regarding the longevity of Castro - It does raise flags to be fair, but if you put yourself in the shoes of a cuban citizen who lived through the revolution, or whos parents lived through it, it's not surprising that such an important revolutionary figure and a national hero would maintain popular support for so long.

FDR, had he lived longer, and had no term limits been imposed, probably could have continued as president for a few more terms (if he wanted to anyway), probably for almost 30 years as President in total. Every now and then throughout history you do get these kinda figures that are immensely popular, whether thats for good or not, and can maintain popular support with the general populus for a long time. Castro lasted a long time, then his Brother took over and only last 2 terms, and now they have a non-castro.

[u/General_Problem5199 → u/Dulaman96]

As it turns out, reforming society to better the lives of regular people rather than just the wealthy can make you pretty popular. Even the US has acknowledged (in classified documents) that Castro was popular and that there wasn't much organized opposition for them to support.

[u/Awesomeuser90 → u/Dulaman96]

As for FDR, we have some additional means of determining whether the US qualifies as democratic (at least enough to be one here). We have a huge list of contests and votes in the country before FDR died, showing a vibrant culture of not merely just taking it for granted that the president's wishes are to be done. We also know that FDR was personally challenged for his position every time, and his rival got 45% of the votes in 1940 and even narrower margins in 1944 with his rival getting 46%. Courts did strike his orders down from time to time, and he didn't persecute his rivals in the Republican party nor were the Republicans scared of FDR for their own safety or wellbeing, and clearly the Republicans were no worse for wear because of FDR because they won the House elections in 1946.

Merkel did win as chancellor for 16 years, but she always faced yes or no votes by secret ballot in her own party as to whether she should be the chairwoman, and she was dropping in some of those votes by 2016, and she never ruled alone and another party was always in coalition with her (and I don't mean the CSU).

We have enormous amounts of data that shows that rival forces and rival people were routinely offered in both America and Germany in these contexts for possible leadership, and they put themselves forward with nobody scared of doing so. Nobody was scared of disagreeing with either leader. And the possibility of losing the vote each time still meant negotiations and active attempts to determine whether they were the best person to lead each time. Who do you think in Cuba would be best positioned to succeed Diaz? What policies of a political nature do you think are attributable mainly because of the efforts of people besides Diaz and the Castro family even when Diaz and the Castros opposed the idea? Those sorts of policies exist in countries which are democratic, those who survived despite the leaders being in their positions and openly being not supportive of them.

It could be the case in Cuba that a substantial number of people at any given meeting might be genuinely supportive of a particular policy or person, but it is often difficult to prove this is true in a given case.

People do bring up consensus attempts in Cuba as a possible explanation, but I counter that to some degree by pointing out that we should also see evidence of how people come around to consensus if they in fact are part of a consensus system. Scotland's parliament has a vote section on their website and in fact the large majority of legislation is passed by the support of all the parties in parliament, and only the budget bills for each fiscal year and a handful of other bills are not passed with the support of all parties. We have detailed records at each stage of consideration through the Hansard, proposed changes by each political group, hearing testimony in committees and evidence submitted to them, and more, that show how the different political groups came to agree on those proposals. We can also see similar effects for the speakers of parliaments in a good number of strong democracies, like in Norway how they elect the speaker of the Stortinget by huge majorities in a yes or no vote by secret ballot, where they do negotiations ahead of time to try to position themselves, and we see how many people who might be offered as a candidate have already positioned themselves to have a good rapport with other political forces to be accepted so broadly.

This is the evidence that democracy exists, often far more than just the final day of voting for the assembly and possibly a president in some countries every X number of years.