Cubans began to vote on Sunday in a referendum on a new Family Code, a very advanced text in terms of societal rights that includes, in particular, same-sex marriage and surrogacy.
Some 8.4 million Cubans are called upon to answer yes or no to the question: “Do you agree with the Family Code?” “.
By midday, 37.3% of voters had gone to the polls, according to the National Electoral Council. Polling stations will close at 6 p.m. local time (2200 GMT).
In the afternoon, in the center of Havana, the voters arrived drop by drop in the polling stations, noted AFP journalists.
“It’s a pretty quiet Sunday. If we compare it to other polls, it’s different, we don’t see enthusiasm, “said Eduardo, a 57-year-old voter who did not wish to give his name, to AFP.
Elio Gomez, a 78-year-old ex-Marxism teacher, voted early at a school in Old Havana. “Perhaps a few years ago I would not have accepted this code, but you have to understand that societies evolve […] It’s a very human code, totally inclusive,” he explained.
The new law, which thoroughly dusts off the text in force since 1975, defines marriage as the union of “two people”, which legalizes same-sex marriage and same-sex adoption.
In addition to strengthening the rights of children, the elderly and disabled, it introduces the possibility of legally recognizing several fathers and mothers, in addition to biological parents, as well as non-profit surrogacy.
Several of these subjects remain sensitive in Cuba, in a society still steeped in machismo and whose communist government ostracized homosexuals in the 1960s and 1970s.
Nevertheless, over the past twenty years, the attitude of the authorities towards homosexuals has changed markedly, and the “yes” vote has been the subject of an intense government campaign.
President Miguel Diaz-Canel cast his vote with his wife in a neighborhood in western Havana. The Family Code “is a fair, necessary, updated and modern law that gives rights and guarantees to everyone”, he insisted.
In military shirt, former President Raul Castro (2006-2018) also went to the polls.
“We Survive”
This is the first time that Cubans have been called upon to vote yes or no on a law, the referendum having hitherto been reserved for constitutional texts.
In a context of deep economic crisis and record emigration, and more than a year after the historic demonstrations of July 2021 demanding more freedom, some voters could be tempted to abstain or vote in protest.
“I think I was one of the first to say ‘no’. There is no food, hygiene products. We survive, amid power cuts. I see no reason to say ‘yes’,” José Antonio Callejas, 47, told AFP as he left a polling station in the capital.
In 2019, the Cuban government tried to introduce same-sex marriage into the new Constitution, before backtracking in the face of criticism from the Catholic and Evangelical Churches.
For several months, the Code was the subject of a vast popular consultation which led to the modification of 48% of the text, according to the official media.
However, the broad nature of the text, which has more than 500 articles, could also fuel the negative vote or abstention, some voters saying, for example, in favor of equal marriage, but opposed to adoption.
For political scientist Rafael Hernandez, it is “the most important human rights legislation” in Cuba since the 1959 revolution, to the point that some even felt that the government “was going too far”.
This progressive character of the text also divided the opponents.
“We are not voting yes with the CCP, it is he who is voting yes with us,” gay activist Maykel Gonzalez Vivero had insisted on Twitter a few weeks before the election, in reference to the Cuban Communist Party, the single party. He posted a photo of his ballot in favor of the text on Sunday.
Other activists and dissidents called for voting against or abstaining.