Accountability Meetings Begin Today Across Cuba

by María Josefina Arce

All over Cuba, an important exercise of our participatory democracy, approved by the Constitution, will take place: the accountability of delegates to the voters of their municipality.

Until next November, this will be the first process in the current term of the Municipal Assemblies of Popular Power, after the Council of State agreed to postpone it until 2023.

Homero Acosta, Secretary of the National Assembly of Popular Power and of the Council of State, has expressed that this is one of the most effective ways of direct participation of the people in the exercise of government.

It is a process that, as has been pointed out, actively involves mass organizations such as the CDR, the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution, and the FMC, the Federation of Cuban Women, as well as local administrations, managers and the population.

A broad and constructive debate to find solutions to the problems affecting the community is the essence of these meetings, which are taking place in a complex situation of material shortages of all kinds due to the tightening of the U.S. blockade.

According to information, more than 65,000 of these meetings, in which the people are the real protagonists, will take place until November 15.

These assemblies allow for a closer relationship between the inhabitants of the various communities of the country and those elected to represent their interests.

Of course, this is not the only way to channel existing concerns and problems; the delegate, an important figure of the People's Power, must always be willing to listen and attend to his constituents; a duty, but also a right, of Cubans to evaluate the work of those they have elected to represent them is this periodic exercise of our participatory democracy; as the president of the National Assembly of People's Power of Cuba, Esteban Lazo, has stated, these meetings are one of the most important moments of our political and institutional system.