By Bárbara Vasallo on March 12, 2023
Photo: Omara García Mederos/ ACN.
“This will be a Parliament of fewer deputies therefore it touches more responsibility, it will assume in historic moments. For any of us to be elected representative of the people, constitutes true honor,” said Gerardo Hernández Nordelo, in a single sentence.
The Hero of the Republic of Cuba agreed to talk exclusively with the Cuban News Agency about his nomination again as a candidate for deputy to the National Assembly of People’s Power
Affable and communicative, the National Coordinator of the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution (CDR) assured that although the vote is secret, he will vote for everyone.
“I can say it, there are many reasons to vote for everyone, one of them is that on the ballots there are comrades who are not as well known as others, but who are not there in an improvised way, but by the will of the voters of their respective constituencies.
“In the case of Cerro, for example, two of our colleagues have been deputies, the other two are newly elected delegates, their neighbors decided that they want them to be their representatives in Parliament.
Certainly they are little known, it would be unfair for someone to vote only for the people they know in a general way and not for those who are for the will of their neighborhood, who are from the neighborhood, from the municipality that has certain difficulties that no one better than them warns and therefore I consider it important that a vote is made for everyone.”
Gerardo’s office is simple and welcoming: portraits of his children, of Fidel, small-giant figures of Che Guevara and Simón Bolívar, well placed, and there is silence.
Gerardo, one of the Cuban The Five, is very clear about the context in which Cuba is developing this process of National Elections.
“The enemies of the Revolution are betting first that we will not vote, that we will not go out to exercise this democratic right, also that we will vote in a disunited way, that we will annul the ballots, they have done that every time there is an election in our country.
That is why I think it is the duty of every revolutionary to go out to support the Revolution, our socialist project, and to vote in a united manner.
The CDRs are involved in the electoral process from the first moments, they are the people of the community who know each other well, there you know who moved in, who died or the girls and boys who have arrived at the age to go and vote.
As the largest mass organization in the country we have a very important role in all electoral processes, and this has been no exception; our work starts very early, in the first stages, among other things we have to do a strong joint work with the National Electoral Council, checking the records.
We help in the beautification of the premises where they are going to vote, the placement of the biographies, the places have to be selected, there are many tasks in which we support….And of course also at the time of the call, we ask the neighbors to go out and exercise their democratic right.
It is part of the work that the CDRs do every time there is an election process, and of course everything we do is going to be misrepresented by those who are enemies.
When we talk about the “house to house” project which is nothing more than visiting neighbors to see who resides, who moved, who died, who left the country, who is new to the block, it is the only way to update the electoral records, there they come to misrepresent, but we don’t think about that, the CDRs are proud to be part of every electoral process.”
Gerardo is a jovial man, with a quick conversation, as if the recording time would run out, he always has many things to do.
If he takes a seat in the Cuban Parliament again, he is aware of the many important laws, measures that must be passed expressing the will of the people, and those are very serious and urgent matters.
He is forceful. He emphasizes: “These are difficult times, times of definitions, times in which a truly representative Parliament is required to carry forward and materialize the dream of our people to build an increasingly better and fairer society”.
Source: Resumen Latinoamericano – Buenos Aires