Though Cubans have been exposed to intense governmental repression and pressure the last few weeks, nearly 30% of the electorate openly defied the Castro regime and its policies and did not vote in the recent elections for renewal of the various municipal assemblies.
According to Rubén Pérez Rodríguez, vice president of the National Electoral Commission, less than 71% of the 8.4 million Cuban voters showed up at the polls. Even when Pérez declared that the voting had been “quite massive,” the fact is that, in comparison with the elections held in 2006, when 90.32% of the total number of Cubans called to the polls actually voted, this time there was notable absenteeism.
In Cuba, it is almost a sacrilege not to vote in the elections the government regularly conducts; and not voting may place the common citizen on the “black list” of those disaffected with the regime, with all the attendant consequences that such action may bring them.
That’s why it is the more remarkable that, given the current conditions, so many Cubans chose not to vote, knowing full well that such absenteeism would bring reprisals.