Havana, Cuba, Feb 25, 2008 / 11:03 am
In an urgent press release, the leader of the Christian Liberation Movement (CLM), Oswaldo Paya Sardinas, rejected the election of Raul Castro, brother of Fidel Castro, as the new president of Cuba and insisted that “the people should decide about who should lead the country and not the Communist party.”
The statement indicated that “disproportional expectations” existed outside of Cuba regarding the election of the new president. Such expectations “did not exist in the people” of Cuba, he said, “because the succession of Fidel Castro does not in itself bring the changes that the people want and need.”
Paya noted that the representatives that make up the National Assembly “were not elected by the citizens, because the electoral law does not allow the people to choose between various candidates and the ballot only included the same number of candidates as there are representatives. This never was nor will it ever be an election,” the CLM statement said.
The movement criticized Raul Castro for stating that “there are no antagonistic contradictions” in Cuba. “They do exist, because there is an essential antagonism between this system of no rights on the one hand, and the legitimate rights and interests of the people on the other.”