Two Cuban Opposition Candidates Lose Election Bids

Two Cuban Opposition Candidates Lose Election Bids
April 20, 2015 12:10 AM

HAVANA—
Two Cuban dissidents on Sunday lost attempts to become the first openly
declared political opponents to win election in Cuba since the 1959
revolution, each failing in races for Havana municipal assemblies.

Hildebrando Chaviano, 65, and Yuniel Lopez, 26, both said they had
fallen behind by insurmountable margins and had no hope of winning.

The two were among of 27,379 candidates competing in midterm elections
for 12,589 nationwide municipal assembly posts, the first rung on Cuba's
political ladder.

"The vote was clean. The count was clean. The people don't want change.
They still want the revolution," said Chaviano, a lawyer who writes for
Diario de Cuba, a website fiercely critical of the government.

"I still consider this a success. People know who we are now," he added.

Final official vote counts were expected later on Sunday or early
Monday. Incomplete results showed Chaviano finishing fourth in his
district with 138 votes, behind three others who had 208, 201 and 194 votes.

Lopez was a distant third in another district with 65 votes, trailing
candidates with 272 and 96 votes.

Neighbors of Lopez cheered his name even in defeat.

"I'm happy with the way the people supported me despite the campaign
that was mounted against me," said Lopez, who belongs to an outlawed
party founded by Huber Matos. Matos fought alongside Fidel Castro in the
Cuban revolution but later turned against him and was jailed before
going into exile.

Neighborhood votes

The two ran in separate districts of Havana after getting on the ballot
from a show-of-hands vote by neighbors last month.

Both said election officials altered their autobiographies to say they
had ties to "counter-revolutionaries" based or financed abroad, code
words for individuals out to harm Cuba.

No campaigning is allowed in Cuban elections. Instead, biographies and
photos of candidates are posted side by side in public places.

Cuba's municipal assembly delegates are nominated by neighbors and do
not have to belong to the Communist Party, but the path to higher office
is controlled by the party.

Their candidacies were the first electoral challenge since the United
States and Cuba agreed in December to renew diplomatic ties and end five
decades of hostility.

After coming to power in 1959, Castro promised elections within two
years, but the government resisted, citing the U.S. threat. By 1965 the
Communist Party was in charge and instituted voting for municipal,
provincial and national assemblies in 1976.

Source: Two Cuban Opposition Candidates Lose Election Bids -
http://www.voanews.com/content/two-cuban-opposition-candidates-lose-election-bids/2726321.html