Sunday, February 24, 2008

February 24th!

Happy February 24th to all! Not only is today the announcement of the election results in Cuba, but it is also the day that their War for Independence began in 1895 (Spanish-Cuban-American War). So today means many things to Cubans.
The election results will be announced at 2 and the country is awaiting the news. Although, similar to Tuesday, today seems to be a typical day in Havana without much overt excitement or tension. (Just joking…apparently the announcement time changed to 6:00, I guess even presidential election results don’t follow a schedule here!)
This morning, I headed to the Palacio de Convenciónes (Convention Center) in Miramar, where the Asemblea Nacional was meeting to elect the republic’s next President and Commander in Chief, as well as the new second in command. I caught a maquina (taxi car from the 50s) to Miramar with Susan, Robin and Matt and was able to have an interesting conversation with the driver and another passenger. I asked them if many people were going to the Palacio to observe the elections and what they thought would unfold today. I was told that the Palacio would be busy, but they didn’t transport many people there, and that although today is historic, they weren’t too anxious to hear the result. The passenger was quiet, but at one point spoke up, saying, “Esto es que el Comandante ordene”-this is what the Commandante (Fidel) ordered, as in he has said a all along that he wants Raúl to be his successor and that is what will transpire. That seems to be the consensus around here- why be excited when we know what will happen? It’s more of an emotion of retaining the status quo, whether that individually means something positive or negative, rather than viewing things from the big picture that this is a new era in the revolution. The four of us tried to get into the area around the Convention Center, or even inside if possible, but the police were less than flexible about security today. We tried almost everything, but in the end were denied and ended up hanging out in the parking lot where the invited diplomat’s parked. It ended up being a good place to camp out since we got to see all of the countries that were invited and talk to their chauffeurs about what was going on inside. Then we walked down the street for one final attempt to get in and ended up talking to one of the head security officers from the Ministry of the Interior for about an hour. It was an amazing conversation about the electoral process, conditions in Cuba (he had a very favorable view), political freedoms and events at the Convention Center. He was very proud that Cuban citizens are able to choose their representatives, even though they are all within one party, that they are there to represent their constituents and the issues, rather than being career politicians and that those factors would combine to create the best possible government this afternoon.
After the conversation, we headed back to Vedado and had another good conversation with our taxi driver. Unlike most other Cubans that I’ve talked to, he had many opinions about what he hoped would happen today. Rather than the Raúl Castro/Carlos Lage pair that seemed to be popular, he wanted to see Felipe Pérez, Fidel´s former Chief of Staff, elected as President, and really doesn’t like Lage. So that was interesting to hear, especially as some of his comments could have easily been considered as dissidence and we were riding in a state owned taxi. When we got back, I went out in search of a newspaper and any events surrounding the election. Unfortunately there wasn’t much to report on, as life has been continuing on as usual within the changing political environment. I learned that Sunday papers are combined with the Monday papers because the Correo (postal) workers don’t work on Sundays, so that’s always helpful to know. Other than that, people were listening to music, playing basketball and baseball, doing chores and watching the tv for results. I tried to get the opinions of some of the people on the street, but couldn’t get too many people to stop or if they did, to say something in public about the election. I’ll try for more tonight after there is some closure to the election process and people can react rather than predict.

So, election results were just announced and Raul Castro is officially the President and Machado is the Vice President. He was a name that didn’t come up much, so I’ll do some research and post more details mid week. I video taped the announcement and hopefully I can post it soon! Stay tuned!

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