Talk:President of Cuba

Removed this addition.

• From 1962 to 1992, the only legal political party in Cuba was the Communist Party. Since then, other parties are theoretically legal, but they are not legally allowed to campaign for office. Expressing opposition to socialism or Fidel Castro has resulted in opponents of the Cuban regime being jailed.
• This deals with the Communist party of Cuba. Not the President of Cuba, which is a position that is 104 years old.
• No parties are legally entitled to campaign for office - including the Communist Party of Cuba.
• Issues dealing with "Expressing opposition to socialism or Fidel Castro" are not relevant here. Take them to Human rights in Cuba or Elections in Cuba. --Zleitzen 02:31, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Information about the reality of the process by which Fidel Castro selects the President of Cuba (or selects himself) is relevant to this article. The Presidency of Cuba is not a democratically-elected position, despite the apparent formalities of elections, and explaining that information is relevant to the article. (Similarly, explaining that Castro's predecessors generally obtained the position through force or fraud would also be relevant to the article.) Argyriou 03:28, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

This page isn't about how Fidel Castro "selects the President of Cuba". The National Assembly select the President of Cuba. That is all, end of story. You have the wrong page, take your statements to elections in Cuba.--Zleitzen 03:53, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

The material about Batista is way off the mark. He was first elected via traditional multiparty elections by forming a coalition with the communists in 1940. His second spell was solely as a result of a military coup. There is no similarity between the election and governance of Castro and Batista. Also Grau, who was a political rival, wasn't installed by Batista in 1933, he was a revolutionary leader who was removed by Batista. Both Grau and President Carlos Prío Socarrás, were deposed by Batista after his spell in exile in 1952.

The US State department report is inaccurate, slanted, biased and totally innappropriate to this page. Most importantly it refers to Cubas elections to the National Assembly - not the elections to the Council of State of Cuba and the election of President. --Zleitzen 04:12, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Formally, the National Assembly elects the President. In reality, Fidel Castro selects the National Assembly, just as previous dictators of Cuba have done. An article which claims to be encyclopedic must acknowlege those facts, else it is merely propaganda. Argyriou 07:01, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Previous "dictators" of Cuba didn't select the national assembly. That would not meet Wikipedia:Verifiability policy. There wasn't a National Assembly, that was created under Castro after a long term suspension of political structure. Prior to Castro, Cuba operated a U.S. style system including a House of representatives. Batista, Machado, Grau, Prio and Andrés Rivero Agüero (before the Cuban revolution swept away his chances of becoming President after the election in 1958) were all elected under multiparty systems. Claims of corruption existed, as in any nation of course, but these are complex and certainly do not warrant an innaccurate summary sentence on this page.

You say "In reality, Fidel Castro selects the National Assembly". Well that clearly would not meet Wikipedia:Verifiability policy. Nominees to the National Assembly are chosen at local gatherings from multiple candidates before gaining approval from election committees. Candidates for the Assembly are approved by public referendum. All Cuban citizens over sixteen years of age who have not been found guilty of a criminal offense can vote. That does meet Wikipedia:Verifiability policy. But is not relevant to this page either. Take it to Elections in Cuba.--Zleitzen 13:22, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Whatsmore your description of the article "mostly communist propaganda with little relation to fact" is extremely hostile and bogus. As someone who has spent much of my life opposing the Communist party of Cuba I also find it offensive. Everything that was on the article previous to your additions was clearly Verifiable. Maybe you should begin by pointing out something that was false before throwing accusations around in edit summaries. I'll give you a clue, nothing on the page was false.--Zleitzen 13:31, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

One does not need to lie to propagandize. One can do so by failing to state relevant facts. It is a relevant fact that the method of election of the President of Cuba is controlled by Castro. Further, the statement I made regarding Castro's control was reported in a verifiable, reliable source, which I cited, in the matierial which you deleted. Argyriou 21:14, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Argyriou, there is no need to fight about this. Though, looking at your claims, I don't see that you are citing verifiable credible sources for what you believe to be 'facts'. Cite your sources. BruceHallman 19:41, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

I did cite a reliable, verifiable source for the claim that Castro packs the National Assembly to ensure the election of Castro's choice (or himself); the information about the Batista transfer of power comes from the Fulgencio Batista article, which is well-sourced, but does not have specific citations for specific statements. Argyriou 21:14, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Argyriou, your source is a United States state department report. Do you really believe that this is reliable, verifiable and legitimate source for an article on "The President of Cuba"? The original page contained bald facts, no frills, no views. Which you call "propaganda"!? You change that encyclopedic, verifiable-by-all-sources equilibrium by adding views from a government which has declared Cuba to be an enemy state, and has confirmed a 50 year programme of propaganda against Cuba. Now, do you really believe that this, or any other report is helpful to this page? Lets imagine we head over to this page: President of the United States and add the views of the Cuban government. Claiming that these views are reliable, verifiable and legitimate sources - I challenge you in fact to see how far you get. What I imagine you'll read from other editors is exactly what I have and will tell you, "unreliable, irrelevant insertion of an unneccesary point of view - to what should be straight forward, uncontroversial article."--Zleitzen 23:25, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Concerning the historical paragraph - explain to me how "Previous transitions of power between presidents" are similar to the present President of Cuba (the subject of this article by the way - not elections in Cuba). Which previous transitions? The 1952 coup d'tat orchestrated in Florida to remove Prio? How is that similar to, say the 2003 Legislative elections to the National Assembly, where there was no transition of power? I think you have a complete misunderstanding of all the events and processes here. Most importantly, you misunderstand the electoral system, present day Cuba is a parliamentary system, and much like the rest of the world doesn't have "Presidential elections". It has elections to parliament (assembly), who chose the ministry, the council of state and the Head of State. Those three organs are subordinate and answerable to the parliament. --Zleitzen 23:45, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

The article on Batista says that Batista selected a tame assembly to confirm him as President, which looks an awful lot like what Castro does every four years. I reworded that paragraph before inserting it, as there was not sufficient information for me to compare previous elections, as neither the History of Cuba or Elections in Cuba articles provide much detail about the manner of electing a President (except to note that there was a popular vote for at least one election).

Explain to me how Castro selects an assembly? Using sources. Having read thousands of pages on the Cuban electoral system and history, it would be a new and radical development to me.--Zleitzen 00:04, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

The "Views" of the Government of Cuba are whatever lies Fidel Castro wants to sell to the world community, and the Government of Cuba is not a reliable source for any political information, as Castro's 47 year career of lies and dissembling make clear. The United States government is not always the most reliable source, but no reliable (non-Communist) source seriously challenges the factual information regarding Cuba contained in U.S. government reports.

The government of Cuba and the government of the United States are not equally reliable, nor are they equal in any other important way. The government of the United States is a democratically elected government, subject to oversight by a free press. The government of Cuba is a dictatorship imposed and maintained by force of arms, with no real oversight provided by a wholly-owned press which only reports what it is ordered to report. If you can't understand those differences, then you can't understand what a reliable source is, nor what a neutral point of view is. Argyriou 23:48, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

OK, you've made your anti-Cuba point of view very clear here. The view of the government of Cuba is unreliable, the view of the government of the United States is a reliable source on Cuba. So, according to you we should carry an article on the President of Cuba that puts forward the United States government point of view. But not the Cuban view. This is the very basis of POV. When we could have the view of neither government and state the bald facts - the very basis of encyclopedic writing.--Zleitzen 23:59, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

To reiterate, you have placed unneccessary (and factually inaccurate by the way, as I could demonstrate) material that refers to the Cuban legislative election, 2003 to the National Assembly of People's Power of Cuba, (not a presidential election so not relevant here anyway) which is well covered in detail elsewhere. It is simply the wrong page.--Zleitzen 01:08, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, the United States State Department has a long history of advocating for the overthrow of the incumbent government of Cuba, which they call in double-speak 'transition'. The State Department is not a credible source regarding Cuba. BruceHallman 19:07, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

Indeed. But most importantly this is a page which explains the consitutional role of the President of Cuba within the various state organs, the role and duties of the President and so on. As is the Prime Minister of Cuba page for the Prime Minister of Cuba. It's not a forum for the opinions of foreign nationals on Fidel Castro. There are plenty of other pages for that.--Zleitzen 19:47, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

Restored stable version

I've restored the original text containing the bald facts without any "views" from foreign governments or detail about the non-Presidential related legislative elections. If users want to know about the legislative elections to the national assembly they can check the relevant pages. --Zleitzen 00:35, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

Numbering of Cuban Presidents

Seeing as Fidel Castro is the 22nd President; should not Raul Castro be the 23rd President? GoodDay (talk) 14:11, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

• This remains an issue - the numbering in the Spanish wikipedia is not the same as the one used in the English wikipedia. -- Beardo (talk) 16:24, 18 August 2019 (UTC)

Incumbent President: Osama bin Laden?

Can somebody edit the box in the top right? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.175.92.251 (talk) 11:50, 14 May 2011 (UTC)