The Dallas Morning News

 

7 million Cubans vote in elections Castro says nation is building style of democracy; foes say process means little

 

Tracey Eaton 

 

Staff Writer of The Dallas Morning News  

Published: January 12, 1998

 

EL COBRE, Cuba - About 7 million Cubans turned out for Sunday's general elections in what President Fidel Castro called an experiment in democracy.

 

"We're free. We're independent," Mr. Castro said after casting his ballot in El Cobre, a town of 18,000 on the island's southeastern edge. "And we fight for our independence - today, yesterday and always. "

 

The Cuban leader's foes say the national elections, held every five years, carry little meaning because there are no opposition candidates. But Mr. Castro, wearing his trademark olive-green fatigues, cap and boots, said Cuba is building its own brand of democracy.

 

Ordinary citizens and grassroots organizations - not Cuba's Communist Party - choose the candidates, he said. Up for grabs are all 601 seats in the National Assembly of the People's Power. Mr. Castro was listed on the ballot in El Cobre as a candidate for the assembly, which is expected to elect him president for the fifth time.

 

Mr. Castro, 71, said five years ago that he didn't want to be re-elected because he hoped to retire. But Sunday he said he would accept the presidency so he could continue defending Cuba against the Communist regime's "enemies" in the United States.

 

"Nothing can stop us. Not even death, because those who try to wipe us out will have to die, too," he said.

 

Some analysts have suggested that Mr. Castro is touting the elections to gain credibility before the Jan. 21 arrival of Pope John Paul II, visiting Cuba for the first time. But Mr. Castro disputed that.

 

"We don't want to politicize the pope's visit," he said.

 

Mr. Castro spoke to cheering supporters outside a school in El Cobre, then fielded journalists' questions for more than an hour.

 

Asked whether he believed in God, Mr. Castro declined to say.

 

"If you say you don't believe in God, you hurt those who do. And if you say you do believe in God, you hurt those who don't," he said. "I do believe in man, in man's will, and in man's nobility. "

 

Mr. Castro and his followers defeated dictator Fulgencio Batista in 1959. No national elections were held until 1976. Since then, voter turnout has been high, reaching 97.6 percent in the last general elections.

 

Voting is not mandatory in Cuba. So for some, the big turnout is proof that most support Mr. Castro.

 

Critics, however, say people are forced to pick Communist Party members because there are no opposition candidates. Government officials say if voters don't like someone, they can simply refuse to choose them; candidates must get more than 50 percent of the vote to be elected.

 

Mr. Castro, in an earlier speech, said having only one political party doesn't mean Cuba's system is any less democratic than others. In the United States, he said, "there isn't the slightest difference between" the Republican and Democratic parties.

 

"In terms of methods, style, the way of making policy, there really is no difference," he said. "It is a two-headed party. " He also criticized campaign fund-raising techniques in the United States, where both Republicans and Democrats, including President Clinton, have been accused of questionable practices.