86% Votes For New Constitution in Cuba
Telesur | Tuesday, 26 February 2019 | Click here for original article
Cuba's President Miguel Diaz-Canel casts his vote during the referendum to approve the constitutional reform in Havana, Cuba, Feb. 24, 2019
86.86 percent of voters ratified the new Cuban constitution while only 7.6 percent voted no during the referendum.
Cuba's referendum on the New Constitution was announced Monday through a press conference. According to preliminary results, 85.86 percent voted yes for the new constitution.
The vote took place Sunday in the country where around 84.1 percent of the electorate exercised their right to vote.
According to the result, 7,522,569 people voted Sunday i.e, 73.31 percent of the total electorate and 84.41 percent of the accepted votes. Out of this. 198,674 votes i.e., 2.53 percent were blank votes, and 127,100 votes i.e., 1.62 percent votes were cancelled.
The result showed that 6,816,169 voters voted in favor of the Constitution which represents 73.31 percent of the total voter pool but 86.85 percent of the updated list after counting out blank votes and cancelled votes.
"The new Constitution of the #Cuba Republic has been ratified with 86.85% of the voters who went to the polls."
706,400 voted no which represents only 7.6 percent of the total number of voters and nine percent in relation to the updated list.
Cuban embassies around the world opened their votes on Feb. 15 to decide on the island's new constitution. Voting stations were open in Cuban consular offices in 130 countries until Feb. 17 in a process that was declared to be successful by the Special Electoral Commission of the Foreign Ministry.
During the vote, unlike in other countries, no police or military had been deployed and all the responsibilities were given to students.
The Republic's new constitution would modernize the current one, which was approved in 1976. Almost 9 million people built the new text through a participatory process in which some 780,000 suggestions and 9,600 proposals were analyzed through 133,000 citizen meetings held between Aug. 13 and Nov. 15, 2018.
The final draft of this new Constitution, which includes 229 articles, was approved by the Cuban National Assembly on Dec. 22, 2018, after three months of public forums where all citizens were invited to contribute to the final document.
