The Cubans approved in a referendumwith 66.87 percent of the votes, a new Family Code that legalizes marriage and same-sex adoptions and surrogacy, which places the Caribbean island at the forefront of Latin America in this matter. The results, released this Monday, are bittersweet for the Cuban government, which saw the triumph of the option for which it fought tirelessly in the weeks prior to the referendum, but with a much higher rate of disagreement (26 percent abstention and 33 percent vote against) than in previous referendums on the island. President Miguel Diaz-Canel rated the result as “one more victory for socialist construction”.
“Today we have more rights in Cuba”
“With the approval of that code, today we have more rights in Cuba. It was a vote for Cuba, it was a yes for Cuba, it was a yes for the Revolution”, assured the president, according to the official newspaper Granma. Díaz-Canel stressed that the “Yes” victory was achieved “despite a context of difficult economic and social and energy situations, with migratory movements,” in addition to the “understandable discrepancies in some of the issues that, due to the scope of the code They were approached.”
A video posted on Twitter by the Cuban presidency showed Díaz-Canel applauding along with other authorities of the country when learning, during a meeting, the results of the consultation. Also on that social network, the president wrote: “Approving the Family Code is doing justice. It is paying off a debt with several generations of Cuban men and women, whose family projects have been waiting for this Law for years. Starting today, we will be a better nation.”
According to the National Electoral Council (CEN), 6,251,786 voters exercised their right to vote, the equivalent of 74.01 percent of the register. Of the total of 5,891,705 valid votes, 3,936,790 were for Yes (66.87 percent) and 1,950,090 for No (33.13 percent). The legislation needed more than 50 percent support to be validated.
The influence of the punishment vote
Despite the result in favor of the code, the participation was less large than that registered to approve the new Constitution in 2019, when it reached 90.15 percent. Y This is the highest percentage of votes against that the Cuban government has received.
“In the country there can also be a vote of punishment”had admitted Diaz-Canel on Sunday after voting. For his part, the former Cuban diplomat and political analyst Carlos Alzugaray He considered that the result has a positive side, the approval of progressive legislation, but that it should also be an alarm signal for the government.
Alzugaray stressed that the government lost the “mobilizing capacity of the past”, despite the “overwhelming propaganda” from all Cuban institutions in recent weeks. In his opinion, an “important part” of the population was not convinced by the government’s arguments for the “Yes” and did not go to vote, “defying the old Cuban precept that not voting marks you” and can have consequences .
For his part, the Cuban political scientist Raphael Hernandez I consider that “the Code is an effective step in the direction of social justice” and considered that it is the “most important piece of legislation in terms of human rights” since the beginning of the revolution.
It is a legal rectification of the marginalization suffered by homosexuals that was followed on the island as a state policy in the 1960s and 1970s, and whose discrimination was prohibited by the 2019 Constitution. “And in the end we won! Cuba has a Family Code. The path to enforce it begins”he said on Twitter Maykel Gonzalezan activist and advocate for gay rights.
The main contributions of the new Code
The referendum on the Family Code was the first for a particular law and the third in general to be held in Cuba since the triumph of the revolution in 1959.
The extensive text defines marriage as the union “between two people”, opening the door to homosexual marriage and adoption for same-sex couples. It also allows legal recognition of several fathers and mothers, in addition to the biological ones, as well as surrogacy, non-profit, while adding other rights that favor children, the elderly and the disabled.
“Our people opted for a revolutionary, uplifting law that drives us to achieve social justice for which we work every day. Today we are a better country, with more rights,” said Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez on his Twitter account.
The main opponents of the vote focused on the Christian churches, both Catholic and Protestant.. The Conference of Catholic Bishops of Cuba criticized this month the so-called “gender ideology”, which supports many precepts contained in the new legislation, such as gay marriage, assisted pregnancy and the possibility that minors can start a clinical process to change of sex
Before being approved in July of this year by the National Assembly, version 25 of the Family Code was widely consulted by the Cuban population between February and April in 79,000 meetings in neighborhoods and municipalities. This is the only project that went to a referendum among the 70 legal regulations updated as a result of the introduction of the new Constitution, unlike other laws such as the Penal Code. It was published in the Official Gazette on July 22 of this year.