To Get Real Elections

To Get Real Elections / Eliecer Avila
Eliecer Avila, Translator: Unstated

Ever since I was little, I've paid attention to politics. I enjoyed, for
example, the attention generated around the world by the election
campaigns in the United States. I remember my elementary school teacher
who was always waiting for who would be elected and told us things like,
"If so-and-so wins, we'll have to see. But if the other one wins, he'll
let us have it."

I didn't understand what that meant, but surely he was referring to
starting a war against us or something of that sort. On one occasion,
though I wasn't even in the sixth grade yet, I asked my father when
there would be elections here. By then he was in the army and also in
the Communist Party. I remember he told me, "Soon, you'll see that when
you're grown up you'll be able to vote."

I immediately fired off the second compulsory question: "And will Fidel
always win?" To this he responded with a tirade that lasted over an hour
which I didn't understand, not then and not later. Honestly, I waited
anxiously for the day, the one when I would be able to exercise my vote.
What I could never imagine then is that things here would be very
different, and now I understand why Cubans pay more attention to the
elections in some other country than they do to their own.

But I won't try to explain here the joke about elections in Cuba. A
great deal has already been written about this, and whoever isn't aware
of the inability of the people to change their current political
landscape with an real election system is too lazy to think. I prefer to
focus on the figure and the strange administration of the president.

Notice that I say the president, not Raul. Because it isn't the person
who interests me, the person I don't know. I'm sure I'm not the only one
who asks what the president of this country does, what his commitment is
to Puerto Padre or to El Yarey de Vazquez, my country birthplace. What
does he do every day that we don't see on television or anywhere else?
What is his opinion on the issues we Cub discuss about the present and
future of the country? When does the president talk to people? How does
he listen to their problems?

If anyone has seem him out these days I apologize, but I have never been
that lucky, nor do I know anyone who has. This gentleman doesn't behave
like a president and even worse, we admitted it once, nor do we behave
like a people.

A people vibrates, protests, demands, compels, grants and takes away
powers and faculties, rewards and penalizes those who help or hinder
their development and well-being. We do none of this. On the contrary,
we allow an evident and painful degree of isolation in our "public figures."

These gentlemen run the country from the impunity of anonymity.
Sometime's I'm convinced that the president of this country does not
like being president, does not enjoy like the previous one did, is not a
leader of anything nor does he have ideas of his own to implement, much
less a new vision of the future to share with his people. At best he is
an "official," perhaps respected among his inner circle, but he is never
president, and would not be in any country with real elections. On the
rare occasions when we can see him he's constantly reading a prepared
paper, I cannot imagine what he would do in a debate in front of the
people with a serious and prepared opponent.

These days they are going around everywhere inviting people to
participate in the "elections." I already told you that as long as I
can't vote for president I won't vote, I won't be part of something so
counterrevolutionary as helping to maintain the same thing infinitely.

Even when the day comes when I can vote for the president and for the
top leaders of all the powers, I will not be complacent, I will not
confide in anyone, nor vote for a puppet of the capital or of other
things, I will not vote for an eternal
Communist-schmoozer-leftist-unproductive-applicant. In short, I will not
vote for many people, but I will vote, I know there are Cuban men and
women who know how to earn my vote, and I will give it gladly, because
I'm still waiting for the day to exercise my right, although I am also
convinced that this day will not come on its own two feet, we are going
to have to carry it on our shoulders, with intelligence and determination.

From DiariodeCuba.com

19 October 2012

http://translatingcuba.com/to-get-real-elections-eliecer-avila/