The “Opening” by “Granma”

The "Opening" by "Granma" / Diario de Cuba, Hildebrando Chaviano Montes
Posted on April 19, 2015

In a passage about today's elections, the Communist Party newspaper
"Granma" says that "every citizen has the right to a single vote […]
regardless of [his] political position."

DiariodeCuba, Hildebrando Chaviano Montes*, Havana, 19 April 2015 — The
daily Granma, in its Wednesday, April 15 edition, brings a timid message
of opening hidden in an article about the Cuban electoral system. The
mention that "in the process of electing delegates to the Municipal
Assemblies the vote is characterized as being: free, equal, secret,
direct, nominal and preferential (Prieto Valdes and Perez Hernandez)"
may not call the attention of many readers.

However, the mentioned authors make a contribution to the Constitution
of the Republic itself when they explain that "every citizen has the
right to a single vote and of equal value, without regard to race,
religious belief, skin color, political position."

The passage, although incomplete in my opinion, obviously is supported
and inspired by Article 42 of the Cuban Constitution which says:
"Discrimination on the basis of race, skin color, sex, national origin,
religious belief, and any other offense against human dignity is
proscribed and prohibited by law."

The substitution, however, of the phrase "any other offense against
human dignity" by the more specific "political position" is noteworthy
for being the first time that there appears in the official organ of the
Communist Party an admission that different political positions exist in
Cuba and above all, that they have equal value.

The express recognition by the mentioned jurists that Cuban political
thought is not a single one but is rich in its diversity, as in any
other country on the globe, is the first public gesture that could lead
to a lifting of the strict blockade on ideas imposed since 1959. Some
may think that the Government is manipulating a sensitive topic in order
to ingratiate itself with old and new friends, but at this point
speculating with pretty words does not seem smart.

Moreover, and at the risk of being accused of being a dreamer, naïve and
even a collaborationist, this could well be the antecedent of future
changes announced in an obsolete Constitution whose roots date to 1917
and which stopped being justifiable many years ago, above all in Latin
America, a natural environment in which Cuba seeks to insert itself but
where the left is not entirely red but more pink, generally respecting
the market economy and democratic institutions.

"Chavista" Venezuela constitutes the exception to the political
pragmatism of the Latin American left; taken by the hand of Castro I, it
jumped into the abyss into which apparently Castro II does not wish to
accompany it; he increasingly distances himself from his predecessor,
undoing as he can the inherited absolutist framework.

Triana Cordovi in Economics and Prieto Valdes and Perez Hernandez in
Law, are for the moment isolated authorized voices whose academic
discourse has nothing to do with the Real Socialism defended with shouts
and blows in Panama a few days ago.

All of Cuban society is obligated to force the necessary changes. In
the same way that according to those illustrious professors the votes of
those who have a different political position are equally valid, so is
the candidacy of anyone who does not profess the Communist faith.

Discrimination on the basis of political ideas is as offensive to human
dignity as racial discrimination; a change with respect to the official
discourse tempered with the current times would go a long the way to
replace the absurd ideological hatreds with tolerance and civilized
dialog among all Cubans, for the good of all Cuba.

*Translator's note: Hildebrando Chaviano Montes is an opposition
candidate for the local People's Power; the regime allowed his candidacy
but his "biography" (the only campaigning allowed) identifies him as a
"counterrevolutionary… funded by foreign groups."

Translated by MLK

Source: The "Opening" by "Granma" / Diario de Cuba, Hildebrando Chaviano
Montes | Translating Cuba -
http://translatingcuba.com/the-opening-by-granma-diario-de-cuba-hildebrando-chaviano-montes/