Members of the independent organization Electoral Rights Observers (ODE), belonging to the Citizen Committee for Racial Integration, express their determination to participate in the referendum to approve the Family Code on September 25 in Cuba.
The activist Marthadela Tamayo, who is part of ODE, spoke to Radio Martí about the purpose of the participation.
“Once again, the groups that within the island have worked on the monitoring and observation processes at another time, as it was in 2017-2018 with the nomination processes for delegates to the municipal and provincial Assemblies (of People’s Power) and then we did it on February 24, 2019, in the processes of observing the Constitutional Referendum, because this time, we came together to develop this citizen exercise and we protected ourselves in the Electoral Law itself, ”said the female activist.
According to Tamayo, the right to observe the electoral procedures in Cuba allows one to witness the counts in the Electoral Colleges.
The feminist and anti-racial discrimination leader referred to the popular consultation carried out previously by the regime on the Family Code in which, she pointed out, the members of ODE verified the popular consultation process in which the observers participated in the meetings of neighborhood where the consultations took place.
According to the Cuban authorities, the text was debated in neighborhoods and workplaces between February and April, in some 79,000 meetings, in which they say some 6.5 million citizens participated.
On September 25, citizens of legal age must answer yes or no to the question “Do you agree with the Family Code?”, which will appear on a ballot.
To monitor this process, Tamayo explains that ODE’s independent observers rely on what they call an ABC of popular consultation, a consultation material that was developed by the DEMO-AMLAB group and Electoral Transparency together with the Cuban Legislative Observatory that contemplates some mechanisms of ‘direct democracy’.
The activist indicated that based on previous ODE experiences, they concluded that no matter how much and varied popular participation there is in these debates, “they are usually controlled and bills are discussed that are endorsed by the structures of state power.”
Tamayo invited people who want to join this observation exercise but warned about the repressive violence that the regime uses against those who exercise their right to independently observe these processes.
(With a report by Ariane González for Radio Martí)