Cubans do not vote to elect their president but they will be able to do so this Sunday to approve, or reject, the legal framework that will govern their family relations.
“Do you agree with the Family Code? is the only question that will be put to the voters, with “yes” and “no” as answer options in this unusual referendum, the third in the recent history of the country after those who ratified the constitutions of 1976 Y 2019.
Marriage between people of the same sex, the adoption of children by them or surrogacy are some of the most highlights and controversies of the document of 13 pages that seeks to replace a regulation of 1975.
The plebiscite arrives at a time of deep economic crisis in Cuba, where the main concern among its more than 11 millions of inhabitants is to weather the scarcity of all kinds of products , from food and medicines to toiletries or clothing, and the increasingly frequent blackouts.
The main changes
The new Family Code was submitted to a popular consultation between February and April of this year in which 6.5 million Cubans participated, according to the government..
In addition to the so-called “same-sex marriage”, the possibility for same-sex couples to adopt children or “solidarity gestation” -non-profit surrogacy-, the code contemplates other changes in family interactions.
For example, it opens avenues for penalizesr to domestic aggressors in aspects such as the custody of their children, distribution of assets or inheritance; protects communication between minors and their grandparents in the event of divorce, and legally incorporates stepmothers and stepfathers as guardians.
It also allows parents to choose the order of their children’s surnames and extends -at least on paper, since this requires material resources- the protection of elderly or disabled adults.
Another noteworthy point is the possibility that grandparents acquire parental responsibility, something important considering account that in recent months tens of thousands of middle-aged Cubans have emigrated, in many cases leaving their parents to care for the minors in the house.
The “yes” against the “no”
The government has launched a broad “yes” campaign on television, radio and newspapers ( in Cuba the media are owned by the State), on social networks with the hashtags #YoVotoSi and #CodigoSi, on the street c with abundant posters and even in educational centers through special sessions on the new Code.
All Cuban institutions, from the National Electoral Council to the Supreme Court, have supported the campaign of the National Center for Education Sexual (Cenesex), directed by the influential Mariela Castro, daughter of ex-governor Raúl Castro.
“The Family Code contributes, expands and contributes to broadly guaranteeing the rights of all people and Every family. It contributes to further democratize intergender, intergenerational relations,” Mariela Castro declared this week to the Efe news agency.
Great part of the LGBT community in Cuba also supports the “yes” vote on Sunday.
“That finally in Cuba the legitimacy of love, unions and the lives of thousands of people be legally recognized homosexuals is a reason for celebration, and it vindicates my entire existence and that of the people in my community,” Cuban actor and prominent activist Daniel Triana, from 25 years.
As in Cuba the State monopolizes the public sphere, there is no articulated campaign for the “no” in the media or in the street.
Who knows oppose the approval of the new Family Code, they do so above all with messages on the networks and wield various reasons, usually religious or political.
“The introduction in our legislation of the contents of the so-called ‘gender ideology’, which supports many of the proposals, does not benefit the Cuban family,” the Episcopal Conference of Cuba stated in a statement on its website.
The bishops especially criticize same-sex marriage, adoption by them and surrogacy, which they consider contrary to Catholic values and faith .
In the communiqué they express, however, their support for other points of the proposal related to the domestic violence and the protection of the rights of the elderly and minors.
Meanwhile, on Twitter those who oppose the Family Code have expressed their rejection with the hashtags #YoVotoNo and #CodigoNO.
“Our families also need food, clothing, shoes, medicine, housing, a better quality of life, better hospitals and schools , and I don’t see anywhere a campaign for that. That is why #YoVotoNo”, published another Internet user.
Many opponents have also raised doubts about the cleanliness of the referendum, which according to the authorities is guaranteed, although there will be no supervision by international organizations.
Political confrontation
Like almost every topical issue in Cuba, the plebiscite has acquired strong political connotations.
The Cuban authorities have linked the “yes” campaign with the defense of the current political model since 1959 and increasingly questioned within the country as social discontent increases due to the disastrous economic situation.
“Supporting the Family Code is supporting the country project”, was the headline an article with an interview with Mariela Castro last May in the state newspaper Granma.
For the activist Daniel Triana “this it is disgusting, since the government could have approved same-sex marriage with a stroke of the pen in the National Assembly of People’s Power (Parliament), where everything is voted unanimously”.
“Those of us who disagree with the regime and that we support the code we are in a very delicate ethical and political position“, he assures.
Outside the LGBT community, most dissidents in Cuba have expressed in social networks their intention to vote “no” or abstain as a form of punishment against the government of President Miguel Díaz-Canel.
Others inside and outside the country have taken advantage of the occasion to denounce the lack of political freedoms in Cuba, governed by the Communist Party as the sole and supreme body of power in the State.
“If you cannot elect your president, how can you expose your children to a Family Code that was elected by someone you did not vote for? If they are voting on the Family Code, why not vote on free multiparty elections?” wrote the artist Yotuel Romero, former singer of the Orishas group and co-author of the song Patria y Vida, which has become an anthem of Cuban dissidence. .
A dark and controversial past
If approved the referendum on Sunday, Cuba would become the country number 34 in which, in whole or in part, same-sex marriage is legalized.
The government’s support for this initiative contrasts with the persecution suffered by homosexuals in the first decades of the revolution of 427.
Fidel Castro’s regime considered homosexuality a own vice of capitalist and bourgeois society.
“We cannot believe that a homosexual could meet the conditions and requirements of conduct that would allow us to consider him a true revolutionary, a true communist militant”, declared the ruler publicly in 1965.
In those years homosexuals -along with priests and other people considered counterrevolutionary- were frequently arrested, expelled from their jobs and imprisonedin forced labor campss called UMAP ( Military Production Support Units) for their “rehabilitation”.
After two decades of harsh repression, in 1979 relations between persons of the same sex and began a gradual liberalization that accelerated already in the 21st century.
“The Government was forced to reconcile with its recent past of intolerance and discrimination to fit into the new post-socialist global order. The country needed to open up to the world and offer an image of openness,” explains Cuban historian Abel Sierra Madero.
Meanwhile, some LGBT activists on the island lament that the recent facelift of the Cuban state, culminating in the Family Code, casts a veil over this dark past.
“Cuba was until recently a state homotransphobic. Fidel Castro and Ché Guevara were confessed homotransphobes. Suddenly with this code they intend to obviate all this without a single mention of that disastrous history. They have not apologized and have simply tried to push it as a natural law that emerges from the historical coherence of the Cuban revolution. That is not only false but also very cynical and macabre”, denounces the activist Daniel Triana.
Now you can receive notifications from BBC Mundo. Download the new version of our app and activate it so you don’t miss our best content.
- Do you already know our YouTube channel ? Subscribe!
954631836