• TranscendentalEmpire@lemmy.today
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    3 days ago

    Interesting. But requiring being in good standing with the party is already enough to make these elections illegitimate.

    There are plenty of political parties across the world that require candidates to be in good standing with the party before running for them in an election.

    It’s not like any political party is going to be happy if an infamous person is representing them in an election.

    If anything your grievance should be with single party democracies. Then again, there are plenty of single party states that aren’t criticized anywhere close to Cuba.

    Like I said, democracies need to be weighed on a scale. Plus, simply being a democracy doesn’t necessarily mean a country is going to be a more equitable or virtuous society.

    • LibertyLizard@slrpnk.net
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      3 days ago

      Yes, the issue is with single party states because in such states, the party and the state are basically synonymous. Insofar as a party is a voluntary organization, it’s fine to set standards for ideological unity. But once those standards become a requirement to access political power, your state is functionally no longer democratic.

      And sure, there are other one party states, and they’re also bad. But I’m criticizing the Cuban government specifically because it has more defenders on Lemmy than those states do. Just look at how many angry comments I got.

      • TranscendentalEmpire@lemmy.today
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        3 days ago

        sure, there are other one party states, and they’re also bad.

        Is there a metric in which you use to determine if a country is good or bad? Surely it’s not just democracy = good?

        Cuba (when not being illegally embargoed) has much higher living conditions, education, and access to healthcare when compared to other “democratic” countries with similar demographics.

        • LibertyLizard@slrpnk.net
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          3 days ago

          Respect for autonomy and worker’s rights is important. Cuba does well in some metrics and very poorly on others. For example, few people know that they have one of the highest rates of incarceration of any country on earth. That’s not a sign of some socialist paradise, whatever other achievements they might have.

          But I would generally look at an array of metrics but political freedoms are an important component, especially when we’re discussing government since unlike other metrics it’s totally within their power to control.