In a legitimate and democratic exercise, the candidacy of the 470 deputies to the Cuban Parliament was approved yesterday in the extraordinary sessions of the municipal assemblies of the People's Power, held throughout the country, informed María Consuelo Baeza Martín, president of the National Nominations Commission (CCN).
She detailed that after the assemblies, which counted with a 95% of attendance, the approved candidacy was composed of 221 base candidates -delegates of circumscription-, 135 provincial and 114 national, while of the total, 55.3% are women and 45.5% are blacks and mulattos.
She pointed out that 20 % are young people under 35 years of age; the average age is 46 years, and the sectors of General Education (7.7 %) and Higher Education (5.1 %); Health (6.6 %); Sports (2.6 %), Press (2.1 %), among others such as cooperatives-agriculture, new economic actors and defense stand out.
The President of the CCN stressed that, taking into account that the National Assembly of People's Power is the highest constituent and legislative body of the country, it demands that its members have a high level of education, which is why 95.3% of those proposed for deputies have a higher education level.
On the basis that the Cuban electoral system works with open candidacies, and as a further proof that the democracy that sustains it is solid, Baeza Martin announced that in the assemblies of the municipalities of Carlos Manuel de Céspedes and Vertientes, in the province of Camagüey, it was necessary to change the proposal of candidacy, because the delegates, using their rights conferred by the Electoral Law, did not agree with the proposals.
The President of the CCN pointed out that all candidates must be certified by the National Electoral Council, and added that, from today until March 24, they will begin the tours in their municipalities, to exchange directly with the voters they would represent, and who will exercise their right to vote in the March 26 elections.
TWO UNANIMOUS NOMINATIONS
Army General Raul Castro Ruz, leader of the Cuban Revolution, was nominated yesterday as candidate for deputy, at the extraordinary session of the municipal assembly of the People's Power of Segundo Frente, a territory of the province of Santiago de Cuba.
Mentioning Raul's name was enough for the delegates of the governing body in that mountain range to unanimously support his candidacy.
With similar enthusiasm of the plenary, the pre-candidate Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez, First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Party and President of the Republic, was nominated by the municipality of Santa Clara, which in an extraordinary session defined its eight candidates.
The member of the Political Bureau of the Party and president of the National Assembly of People's Power (ANPP), Esteban Lazo Hernández, thanked the people of the municipality of Arroyo Naranjo for all the support in more than 20 years of work, after being elected, once again, this Sunday, candidate for deputy to the 10th Legislature, for this Havana district.
Addressing the delegates of the Municipal Assembly, after the nomination, Lazo Hernández said that the work done in the last 25 years would not have been possible without the support and affection of the people of Arroyo Naranjo, municipality for which he has been a deputy since shortly after arriving in Havana, in August 1994.
THE PEOPLE COME FIRST
"The people come first and that must be concretized in the close links established with the population". This was stated by Manuel Marrero Cruz, member of the Political Bureau of the Party and prime minister, after thanking, excited, his nomination as candidate for delegate to the National Assembly of People's Power (anpp) for the municipality of Gibara, in the province of Holguín.
Some called him a friend who can be trusted, and Rigoberto Cruz Fernandez, president of the people's council Gibara 2, highlighted his permanent interest in promoting the development of the territory, as well as the empathy in his ways of relating with the people in the communities of the municipality.
SOLID DEMOCRACY
In the province of Cienfuegos, 20 candidates for deputies were approved, which shows the solid democracy that protects us.
The member of the Political Bureau of the Party, Dr. Roberto Morales Ojeda, Secretary of Organization of the Central Committee, and Marydé Fernández López, first secretary of the Party in the province, headed the list of candidates for deputies, approved by the delegates of the Municipal Assembly of the People's Power of the head municipality.
The interventions coincided in endorsing the revolutionary trajectory of the nominees, with sufficient ethical, political and human merits to worthily represent the people of Cienfuegos in Parliament.
HISTORY AND CONTINUITY
The Vice President of the Republic, Salvador Valdés Mesa, and the member of the Political Bureau of the Party and General Secretary of the Central de Trabajadores de Cuba, Ulises Guilarte de Nascimiento, were nominated for Mayabeque.
In Artemisa, 23 candidates were elected, among them the Commander of the Revolution, Ramiro Valdés Menéndez de Menéndez.
Ramiro Valdés Menéndez and Vice Prime Minister and Minister of Economy and Planning, Alejandro Gil Fernández.
Meanwhile, Osbel Lázaro Rodríguez, first secretary of the Party on the Isle of Youth; Rafael Ernesto Licea, president of the Municipal Assembly, and Elier Ramírez Cañedo, deputy director of the Fidel Castro Center, received recognition for their outstanding trajectory and the support of those present at the seat of the Government of the island, located in the southwestern seas of the archipelago.
SERVING THE HOMELAND UNTIL THE LAST DAY
Rebel Army Commander José Ramón Machado Ventura was approved by the Municipal Assembly of People's Power of Guantánamo as one of the 26 candidates for deputies to the Parliament.
On behalf of the nominees, he thanked the people of Guantanamo for the honorable assignment for which he was proposed, and pointed out that he will continue, until the last of his days, to serve the Homeland from this responsibility, doing everything possible to promote and preserve Cuba's social conquests.
THE HIGHEST COMMITMENT
A high commitment with Cuba and the Revolution. This is how several of the candidates for deputies for the province of Matanzas qualified their nomination, which will have 32 men and women on the electoral list, all of them with an average age of 41 years old.
In the head municipality, the candidacy of Jorge Luis Broche, member of the secretariat of the Central Committee of the Party; Susely Morfa, first secretary of the CCP in the province; Daylín Alfonso, president of the Ampp of Matanzas; Alisbeth Isaac Drig, specialist in social work and delegate in the Versalles popular council, and Taymí Martínez, director of the provincial hospital, were unanimously approved.
In another of the most prominent economic and social territories, Cárdenas highlighted the nomination of Elián González Brotons, protagonist of an episode that moved the Homeland and the world, and representative of the most valuable Cuban youth.
FROM EAST TO WEST, PURE DEMOCRACY
There were 23, 27, 34 and 35 candidates for deputies -in the same order- for the provinces of Ciego de Avila, Pinar del Rio, Granma and Camagüey, selected in the municipal assemblies of the People's Power of those respective territories, in exercises of pure democracy.
Meanwhile, 22 compañeros and compañeras representing various sectors of the Tunera society make up the total of candidates for deputies of this eastern territory, defined there after an act of democratic transparency, worthy of an example in the world.
The delegates of Yaguajay, in Sancti Spíritus, elected Martha Ayala Ávila, member of the Political Bureau and director of cigb, Heroine of Labor of the Republic of Cuba, and Esmeralda Laredo González, inspection specialist in the Municipal Delegation of Agriculture and constituency delegate.
The province approved the nomination of 20 candidates for the high honor of being deputies to an Assembly formed from the people, by the people and for the people.