Two Cubans struggle to win election as opposition candidates

Two Cubans struggle to win election as opposition candidates
HAVANA | BY DANIEL TROTTA

(Reuters) - In a rare challenge to Cuba's political system from within,
two government opponents are on the ballot for upcoming elections, only
to find that officials have altered their biographies to portray them as
dangers to the revolution.

Hildebrando Chaviano, 65, and Yuniel Lopez, 26, are running for
municipal assembly in Havana on April 19 after winning endorsement from
their neighbors in a show-of-hands vote at public meetings last month.

The biographies they wrote to be displayed publicly have been changed by
local officials, the two candidates said.

Those biographies now say the men have ties to "counter-revolutionaries"
based or financed abroad, code words in Cuban politics for individuals
out to harm the country.

Their candidacies are the first electoral challenge to the Communist
Party since the United States and Cuba agreed in December to renew
diplomatic ties and end five decades of hostility, and the official
response highlights the limits to political freedoms on the island.

They are just two of 27,379 candidates competing for 12,589 municipal
assembly posts, the first rung on Cuba's political ladder.

Cuba says its electoral system is one of the world's most democratic
because municipal assembly delegates are nominated by neighbors and do
not have to belong to the Communist Party.

But the path to the National Assembly, and ultimately the presidency, is
controlled by the party.

Chaviano's altered biography says his military service ended after six
years due to "conduct incompatible with the service," while he contends
he merely chose not to re-enlist. It also deleted much of his
educational history but includes that he took an Internet course at the
U.S. diplomatic mission, emphasizing his ties to a hostile foreign power.

"All that's left is for them to put 'wanted' across the page," said
Chaviano, a lawyer and dissident who writes for the Diario de Cuba
website, which is fiercely critical of the government.

Lopez belongs to an outlawed party founded by Huber Matos, who fought
alongside Fidel Castro in the Cuban revolution but later turned against
him and was jailed before going into exile.

Lopez, who describes himself as an opponent of the government, said the
label "counter-revolutionary" is another way of calling him a terrorist.
"Here the idea of a counter-revolutionary is someone who sabotages the
economy or plants bombs."

NO CAMPAIGNS

The president of Cuba's National Electoral Commission, Alina Balseiro,
told state television that each local commission would try to be
even-handed in editing biographies.

No campaigning is allowed. Instead, the biographies and accompanying
photos of competing candidates are posted side-by-side in public places.

One election official said any changes would have taken place after an
official investigation to verify the biographies as originally
submitted, but she refused to discuss any individual case.

"There is equal treatment and opportunity for all, without favoritism,"
said Yusimi Perez, second in charge of the electoral commission for the
Havana municipality known as Revolution Square where Chaviano is a
candidate. "We don't have a single case among our 217 nominees who have
come to us about any peculiarity with the biographies."

Chaviano said he argued point-by-point with Perez and other officials
about his altered biography but in the end he signed it. "Signature or
no signature, it was going to remain like it was."

Lopez said he refused to sign his but the altered version was published
anyway.

Cuba's dissidents generally boycott elections, describing them as a
farce. Some occasionally seek office but rarely win the first vote by a
show of hands in order to get on the ballot.

None have ever gone further, said Arnold August, author of a 2013 book
about Cuba's electoral process.

August, who says the system is democratic but in need of reform, said
biographies are normally a collaboration between candidates and the
electoral commission.

"If they include derogatory comments, it goes against the spirit of the
electoral law and the system," August said. "I don't think it helps the
revolution to go out of their way to put down people like this."

The government dismisses dissidents as a tiny minority who receive money
from the United States to destabilize the government. Many Cubans are
suspicious of dissident leaders.

If elected, Chaviano says he will try to improve a housing shortage and
feed the elderly, noting he sees people combing through trash even in
his upscale neighborhood of Vedado.

Lopez lives in the poor Santa Amalia neighborhood and wants to repair
broken sidewalks and streets.

Both men said they hope the attempt to blackball them will backfire.

"They could be in for a surprise," Chaviano said. "This could get me
more votes when people see I'm different from the other candidates."

(This version of the story corrects name of Arnold August in paragraphs
20-22)

(Reporting by Daniel Trotta, Rosa Tania Valdés, Marc Frank and Nelson
Acosta; Editing by Kieran Murray)

Source: Two Cubans struggle to win election as opposition candidates |
Reuters -
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/04/07/us-cuba-election-opponents-idUSKBN0MY15020150407