After postponing them in October 2023 and January 2024 and a group of Cuban civil society organizations demanding their immediate realization, the National Assembly of People’s Power (ANPP) announced that lace Accountability Assemblies of the delegates to their voters will be held throughout the country between September 20 and November 15reported the Cuban News Agency (ACN).
This decision was made this Monday in a extraordinary session of the Council of State in the National Capitolwhich was headed by its president, Esteban Lazo, and attended by the Cuban ruler Miguel Díaz-Canel.
The legislative body justified that “the first process of accountability of the delegates to their voters in the 18th mandate of the municipal bodies of Popular Power was postponed in October 2023, and to make up for it, it was agreed to release the work functions of the delegates. delegates whose work would allow it, in the remainder of 2023, with a view to increasing their connection and attention to voters”.
As a result of these actions, Parliament reported, “between October 15 and December 31, 2023, the delegates released from their work responsibilities throughout the country achieved direct exchange with more than two million voters; and, for this and other means, 86,755 proposals were received, of which 74.9% could be resolved“, highlighted the ANPP with triumphalism.
The body also justified that “in January 2023, and taking into account the aforementioned evaluation of the attention to the proposals formulated, and the progress of the link between the delegates and their voters, the Council of State approved not to carry out the process of accountability in the first quarter of 2024”, since, according to their criteria, “The delegates participated in priority tasks for the country and their respective territories, hence the objectives proposed in the stage were satisfactorily met.”
“Accountability involves the obligation of public officials to report on their decisions.” and actions. It is a citizen’s right to be able to receive information about government actions and that there be sanctions in case they do not fulfill their functions,” said activist Marthadela Tamayo González, member of the Racial Integration Committee, in April after, along with other activists, , will form the Rendión de Accountas Ya alliance and, to achieve its objective, will send a letter to the ANPP and five other provincial and municipal assemblies.
“By not holding the assemblies, the Cuban Government is violating the provisions of sections d) and e) of Article 80 of the Constitution, in addition to other violations committed with the Electoral Law,” said activist María Elena Mir and added: “We know that the government is afraid“(The authorities) want to continue with that cloth in their eyes and want to give the image that they are unaware of the calamities that the population in Cuba is going through, thanks to themselves, who are the ones who run the country.”
“The assembly is the only mechanism that the population has to have a rapprochement with the power scheme imposed by the regime, precisely because of that divorce from the people that it has planted for more than 60 years, limiting itself to lowering guidelines. We intend that the people use the assemblies as a real mechanism to summon the power scheme and to provide real responses to the most specific needs, which have led to the state of calamity that Cuban society is experiencing,” said activist Juan Moreno, member of the Cuban Commission for Electoral Defense (COCUDE).
