Talk:Politics of Cuba

Untitled

Wow! Much correction is needed to convert this article to NPOV. El Jigüe 1/29/06

Indeed! And I shall begin the work. WGee 00:29, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

Legal system

It is not correct to refer to the legal system as a "branch" (as in America), because the courts are completely subordinate to the dictator-for-life, Castro. --Uncle Ed 16:19, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

Wow, Uncle Ed, "dictator-for-life"? Is that neutral point of view or truth? Perhaps a better way to make your point would be to cite article XIII[1] of their constitution which does not identify a 'Judicial Branch'. BruceHallman 16:43, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, Bruce. I was confusing Calvin (from the comics) and Castro for a moment. I was obliquely referring to Castro's imputed intent to remain in power in Cuba forever. The assertion that he intends to hold power for the rest of his life comes from a U.S. government source (on the page). --Uncle Ed 17:36, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

Then perhaps you can cite the source for that claim as I requested earlier? BruceHallman 13:28, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

How about President and Prime Minister for Life? lol

Well, the header for the legal system is just "Judiciary" now in the article, so it's no longer referred to as a "branch", so this dispute is resolved, right? Jack Waugh 20:46, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

Factual accuracy

Is the entirety of this article in dispute, or only certain sections? It is quite a large article - perhaps the tag at the top should just be put over the sections that are disputed. --DavidShankBone 15:58, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

Would it not be more accurate to say at the start of the article that "Cuba has had a Communist political system since the 1959 revolution", rather than "Cuba has always been a communist state"? The latter statement cannot be true as the political system before 1959 was radically different than the current one? If you accept that should those words be amended? Freedom1968 (talk) 11:57, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

Moving material

Noe that I moved the election material the elections page where it should be.Ultramarine 16:41, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

I've noted that you've been moving a lot of things around lately. None of it accompanied by discussion, consensus, consultation in accordance with policy. None of it justified it my view. But it'll all come out in the wash, and I'm not going anywhere in a hurry. Please explain why you are making these changes, some of which set a precedent for nation pages? --Zleitzen 16:51, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

I have provided edit comments for all changes. Regarding detailed information on elections, I though it better to present on the election page which is created for that purpose. However, alternatively we can instead also on this page present the views of the critics.Ultramarine 16:54, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

The 'moving' was accompanied by unexplained deletion of material. BruceHallman 17:23, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

What material? Ultramarine 17:39, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

Check the edit history of the page, the answer is self evident. BruceHallman 18:20, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

No it is not. What exactly are you objecting to? Ultramarine 18:22, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

This diff [[2]] deleted information. BruceHallman 19:06, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

Again, as noted above, I moved it to the election page.Ultramarine 19:58, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

Look again, you deleted material and only moved a portion. BruceHallman 20:13, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

What portion was deleted? Ultramarine 20:15, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

Critics say

We must have something more substantial than the archetypal weasel words "critics say...", a random quote based on original research and a source slapped onto the page from some website or another which isn't attributed. Clarifying nothing.--Zleitzen 15:38, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

New comments

216.178.51.235 added these comments on 15:03, 1 December 2006, which I am moving here, to be clearer. -- Beardo 23:56, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

I accidentally added my discussion to the description page. my thoughts are: (this is NOT part of the summary, but a question: the summary sounds biased as I wonder why it is important to note that the civil constitution forces people to support socialism, when it seems the u.s. forces people to support democracy or be considered a traitor...what about the u.s. treatment of "communist" individuals during the cold war? so the cold war is over, but look at those who disagree with the white house, i.e., Valerie Plames' career ruination? what are the u.s. laws about what constitutes a treason? and how may the civil rights be affected...and, ahem, look at the treatment of muslims/muslim clerics/guantanamo--no TRIALs, no charges, and no habeous corpus for those detained...the u.s. wages a war to "defend democracy" and yet the defense of socialism is any different?! (user: christine g, 12/1/06)m

2

This page is a real discredit to Wikipedia. I came here to find out about the Cuban electroal system not to read a pile of inaccurate anti-Cuban propaganda (e.g. Fidel Castro is head of the Armed forces - not true). I won't bother to make corrections, I think the page is lost. If you want to read about the system try here instead [3] Db 12/23/06 - —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.138.129.255 (talk • contribs) on 21 December 2006

Fidel Castro is the Commander in chief of the armed forces and has been since 1959. If you need evidence of this please see the English translation of Castro's statement concerning his 2006 transfer of duties. [4] --Zleitzen 09:02, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

Any of the freedoms accorded to citizens can be exercised against the provisions of the constitution and laws, nor against the existence and objectives of the socialist state, nor against the decision of the Cuban people to build socialism and communism. violation of this principle are punishable. Teemu's latest edit refers to Raul Castro's complaints about the Cuban economy, corruption and the poor infrastructure, back in December. It was accompanied by the announcement of a process of national debate. Raul is quoted here to have said "In this Revolution we are tired of excuses" etc.[5] This is reminiscent of the Rectification period of the late 80s and I believe Fidel Castro has been saying similar things over the last 10 years or so, therefore I don't believe the statement is especially significant. I'm not sure which translation Teemu heard - the wording of his addition seems a little off the mark to me.--Zleitzen 03:39, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

I agree that Teemu's wording may not correctly reflect the original. But I do think that what was said was important, and want to try to find something more definitive to quote. http://tvscripts.edt.reuters.com/2007-01-25/3656caa7.html has a number of quotes from Raul which indicate an unhappiness with the current situation - a desire to change:

17. (SOUNDBITE) (Spanish) CUBAN INTERIM LEADER, RAUL CASTRO, SAYING:

"How can we have food if the majority of the producers - that is 65 percent of the production - aren't being paid? It has been months now and even though it is hard there is no remedy left than to face these problems and

to see if we have finished resolving them."

HAVANA, CUBA (FILE - DECEMBER 22, 2006) (TV CUBANA - ACCESS ALL)

23. (SOUNDBITE) (Spanish) CUBAN INTERIM LEADER, RAUL CASTRO, SAYING: "I believe that we are already tired of the justifications in this revolution, one just has to analyze how the things are and tell them how they

are - to tell the truth."

-- Beardo 14:04, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Please call me formally with my full name. This is to avoid all the expected power struggles from Zleitzen.

I dislike the talk page, which is unnavigable and a forum for politizing. Refer to the history on Cuba: Talk page, if you can find it. Since you have already begun, I will comply to avoid accusations of trolling from Zleitzen et al, which he is sure to love.

I wrote:

Political Issues On 3th of february 2007 the finnish public broadcasting company YLE, channel TV1, broadcasted a Finlands Svensk Television´s documentary OBS, which handled the issue of recent Fidel Castro´s appearance on television. In OBS there was film material in which Raúl Castro said at the Assembly of the Communist Party that, "it's time to face it, our time is beginning to be over". He continued, "I'm fed up with the excuses of the Revolution... everything about Fidel Castro is meaningless, unless you take the charge", pointing at the National Assembly. OBS also stated the Raúl Castro has refused to take over the chairmanship of the National Assembly, and the subsequent position of a head of state.

It's good that Beardo has it more accurately: "In this Revolution we are tired of excuses" etc.[6] or "I believe that we are already tired of the justifications in this revolution...", neither way, it's necessairy to add the politics on to the politics page, not just amateur estimates about the structure of the political system. It's true, my wording was not accurate, but then again, which one of yours is? What comes to the other quotes, I believe they are exact, and they are worth of mentioning in the article. Now we know what the article needs. Perhaps the added facts will even moderate the anti-Castro attitudes. Teemu Ruskeepää 15:32, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Updating Needed

I believe this article needs to be updated as Fidel Castro (due to his current health) is unable to run the country)and the person in charge is his brother Raul Castro. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.161.9.241 (talk) 19:07, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

The article does need updating now that Fidel Castro has resigned, especially the Executive Branch section which names him as president. 121.91.122.78 (talk) 11:29, 21 February 2008 (UTC)Broon

==Off-Topic==

Annex Cuba Into Venezuela

Hi people in Cuban and Venezuelan governments. Why don't you tell Mr. Fidel Castro to annex Cuba into Venezuela before he retires. You could integrate your National Assemblies and judicial systems and other institutions, form a grass-root democracy, where small communities decide and work for themselves and your economies and natural resources, including the Cuban oil reserves could be used to fund the building of a strong 21th century socialist community. Teemu Ruskeepää (talk) 10:59, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Corruption in Cuba AfD

Corruption in Cuba is up for deletion at Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Corruption_in_Cuba. So far it's just me (the nominator) and the article's creator. More input would be appreciated. Cosmic Latte (talk) 11:04, 1 April 2009 (UTC).http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pol%C3%ADtica_de_Cuba

Important notice

The government section of the "Outline of Cuba" needs to be checked, corrected, and completed -- especially the subsections for the government branches.

When the country outlines were created, temporary data (that matched most of the countries but not all) was used to speed up the process. Those countries for which the temporary data does not match must be replaced with the correct information.

Please check that this country's outline is not in error.

If you have any questions or comments, please contact The Transhumanist .

Thank you.

Socialism and Democracy

Which argument do you present to state Cuba as an authoritarian country? The 2008 Democracy Index of The Economist! An english capitalist newspaper. What did you expect they said? You should be more serious and objective. That Index presents Sweden, Norway, Netherlands, Denmark and Luxembourg as greatest democracies while they are ¡Constitutional Monarchies! Please... It would be said too that Cuba is the only country in the world with a sustainable development according to World Wide Fund for Nature and this is result of the politics.--186.48.239.245 (talk) 07:34, 22 July 2010 (UTC)Martin.uy

You are so blind or you are a communist directly, have you ever lived in Cuba ? Of course no. Well I’m cuban and Cuba is 100 porcent authoritarian, we the citizens of Cuba don’t have freedom to speak what we really feel for the communist party because if we do they put us in jail or kill us, there is more than 3000 political prisoners in Cuba including kids, and they are in jail for protesting against the government. Come to cuba to live with us, is too easy to talk from a free country Yordani2424 (talk) 10:34, 1 July 2023 (UTC)

Hmmm hello @Yordani2424. I'm from England, but I would look very silly if I went around telling people that being English automatically makes me an expert in England's economy and political system. Personally I think calling any country "authoritarian" is extremely subjective and unhelpful, but regardless you cannot edit the wiki without using reliable sources.

Even if you were Cuban, it would not matter what your lived experience is because there are 100s of professional Cuban academics to cite research from who probably have very different opinions. The History Wizard of Cambridge (talk) 16:34, 1 July 2023 (UTC)

Actually nevermind, I just saw the ridiculous edits that Yordani2424 made here and here and it's very clearly vandalism. It's obvious that Yordani2424 has nothing constructive to add to the wiki. The History Wizard of Cambridge (talk) 16:39, 1 July 2023 (UTC)

New President

Miguel Diaz-Canel was named Cuba's new president Xin Jing (talk) 19:40, 19 April 2018 (UTC)

References

Totalitarianism

I'm very new to and inexperienced with editing, and am unable to find anything on this subject in this page history – is it possible this has never been suggested? Scholars broadly agree that it is a totalitarian state, and it is listed as one by the non-partisan GlobalSecurity.org among many others. Freedom House gives it a 14/100 for freedom, the same as the People's Republic of China, and it's at the very bottom of both their Press Freedom Index the [[Freedom_of_the_Press_(report)|Freedom of the Press report from Reporters Without Borders. It quite clearly meets every common definition of totalitarianism: North-Korean levels of censorship; one party with one "candidate" per office; secret police; political prisons with forced 12-hour-per-day labor; show trials and summary executions; torture; cult of personality; state control of all media; and on and on. I definitely propose that it be so described, and thus included in the Wikipedia list of totalitarian states. I look forward to the input of other editors! Tambourine60 (talk) 17:42, 25 February 2020 (UTC)

Freedom House is a biased source. I read their full 2020 report on Cuba and they twisted the facts to a degree which I didn't even believe was possible (at least on the part about the election process, which is the only one I already knew enough on the topic to realize they were misinterpreting how it works to a degree that i think it was itentional). We shouldn't use them as a source. Sorry for my bad english. 2.235.241.64 (talk) 17:37, 26 January 2021 (UTC)

 Not to mention they also straight up lied in their country report for the United States in 2022 and pretended that Roe V Wade hadn't been overturned and that the right to abortion and LGBTQ rights were still enshrined nationally LilyLawliet (talk) 22:00, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

As you can see, Freedom House is funded mainly by the US government. 2.235.241.64 (talk) 14:51, 27 January 2021 (UTC)

References

Political POV

Most of this article relies on publications issued by the NGOs which are deeply connected to the US government, to prove to readers how "authoritarian" the Cuban government is. Loaded language is often used, like "authoritarian regime", or "political scientists agree...(which ones?); which absolutely reads as POV. There needs to be a NPOV overhaul on this article, and many of its references need to be updated, as articles from 2006 are being interpreted as facts in the year 2021. As such I have marked this article with the Political POV tag Skiyabu1 (talk) 06:32, 2 December 2021 (UTC)

Your sources are at Politics of Cuba#Authoritarianism. Propose text here if you think it needs updated. Otherwise stop tagging the lead as it conforms with MOS:LEAD. EvergreenFir (talk) 19:20, 2 December 2021 (UTC)

In all cases where this article attempts to make a blanket claim that *all* political scientists characterize the Cuban political system is disputed. Completely missing, ANY claim to the contrary. 5 political scientists are not all political scientists. This article absolutely falls under Template:Political_POV#When_to_use, and I'm not sure why other editors are so hellbent on maintaining the POV in this article, and reverting the Political POV tag when it can only improve the neutrality of the article. Skiyabu1 (talk) 19:51, 2 December 2021 (UTC)

Because they are centrists and right-wingers who are deliberately trying to push anti-communist narratives, most likely 184.147.109.215 (talk) 19:35, 3 December 2021 (UTC)

Pleasa read wp:soap.Slatersteven (talk) 19:33, 16 December 2021 (UTC)

@Slatersteven, Skiyabu1, and EvergreenFir: This article cites the opinions of several political scientists, including Steven Levitsky and Darren Hawkins. Which other sources should be cited in the article in order to correct its partisan bias? Jarble (talk) 23:34, 14 June 2023 (UTC)

We're guided by NPOV (including WP:YESPOV), not trying to correct perceived partisan bias EvergreenFir (talk) 05:00, 16 June 2023 (UTC)

Candidacy Commissions

Does anybody know how the Candidacy Commissions are chosen? Or, if that's not public knowledge, can that fact be confirmed? 73.192.118.226 (talk) 22:20, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

removing info on how their government functions?

why remove information on how their elections work and replace it with "they are not democratic"? they have their own form of democracy separate from liberal democracy as you know it. why add unneeded bias to an already biased article? also, why remove information on their election laws? political campaigns being illegal seems like something people should know right away 2601:441:4000:BF40:8953:3E59:DD72:7CD (talk) 12:13, 6 July 2022 (UTC)

Because it was replacing sourced information with unsourced. Slatersteven (talk) 12:17, 6 July 2022 (UTC)