Cubans began to vote on Sunday in a referendum on a new Family Code, a very advanced text in terms of societal rights which notably includes same-sex marriage and surrogacy.
The roughly 24,000 polling stations opened at 7 a.m. local time and are due to close at 6 p.m.
More than eight million Cubans are called upon to answer yes or no to a single question: “Do you agree with the Family Code?” during this voluntary and secret ballot.
Among them, President Miguel Diaz-Canel went early with his wife to a polling station in western Havana. The Family Code “is a fair, necessary, updated and modern law that gives rights and guarantees to everyone”, declared the Head of State.
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 the disabled, it introduces the possibility of legally recognizing several fathers and mothers, in addition to the 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.
“Perhaps a few years ago I would not have accepted this code, but you have to understand that societies evolve […] It is a very human code, totally inclusive,” Elio Gomez, a 78-year-old ex-Marxism teacher, who voted at a school in Old Havana, told AFP.
In Latin America, same-sex marriage is legal in only seven countries and several Mexican states. Surrogacy is only allowed in two Mexican states. Elsewhere, it most often finds itself in a legal vacuum, neither prohibited nor authorised.
“Most Important Matters”
In 2019, the Cuban government tried to introduce same-sex marriage in the new Constitution, before backtracking in the face of criticism from the Catholic and Evangelical Churches.
The Conference of Bishops recently recalled its opposition to several articles: adoption by homosexual couples, surrogacy and extended parenthood.
“I am a Christian, I have other conceptions [que le Code]I do not accept that, ”abounds Zulika Corso, a 65-year-old teacher.
For several months, the text 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 with more than 500 articles could 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 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 and largely repressed, some voters could be tempted to abstain or vote in protest.
“There are many other subjects that are more important […] like the fact that there is no food,” said Julio Cesar Vazquez, 50.
The progressive nature of the text also divided opponents.
“We are not voting yes with the PCC, 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 (PCC, 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.