Dictator Raul Castro ordered his communist parliament to give his sock puppet president, Miguel Diaz-Canel, another five-year term in a move that surprised absolutely no one. In true socialist fashion, Diaz-Canel was the only candidate for the position, and the only choice members of parliament had was to either approve or reject him.
Cuba’s President Miguel Diaz-Canel clinched a second five-year term Wednesday in a parliamentary vote for which he was the sole candidate in a country where political opposition is illegal.
Diaz-Canel’s bid was confirmed by 97.66 percent of votes cast in the Communist Party of Cuba-aligned National Assembly, its president Esteban Lazo announced in the chamber.
“Taking into account the announced results, I declare lawmaker Miguel Mario Diaz-Canel Bermudez the elected president of the Republic,” said Lazo.
Diaz-Canel, 62, took over the reins in 2018 as Cuba’s first civilian leader after nearly 60 years of hegemony by the Castro brothers, vowing to “always defend the party” even as he set out in pursuit of cautious economic liberalisation.
His first five years in office were marked by the worst economic crisis in three decades and a widely criticised response to historic anti-government protests which triggered a tightening of US sanctions.
With a single party under the absolute control of a single family for the past 64 years, Cuba will remain a totalitarian hellhole for the foreseeable future. The only question anyone can ask is who were the three so-called lawmakers who didn’t approve of Diaz-Canel and if their thumbs-down vote was just a show to give the world the appearance, however ridiculous, of election fairness.
But this is not a joke or anything. Just the “revolution” at work, which is what Cubans deserve. Move along.