The text was widely supported by the communist government and the vote in favor of “yes” has been the subject of an intense official campaign in recent weeks, in the streets, on television and on social networks.
The “yes” received 66.87% of the vote against 33.13% of the votes for the “no”, the highest percentage ever reached in a referendum, according to almost final results announced Monday by the National Electoral Council ( ENC).
This denier specified that the trend in favor of the new law was now “irreversible”. “The family code has been approved by the people,” said the president of the electoral authority, Alina Balseiro.
“The yes has won. Justice has been done (…) It is a question of settling a debt towards several generations of Cubans, whose family projects have been waiting for this law for years”, reacted President Miguel Diaz-Canel.
“From today we will be a better nation,” he added.
Some 8.4 million Cubans were called on Sunday to answer yes or no to the question: “Do you agree with the family code?”
Turnout stood at 74.01%, according to the electoral authority, which still had to validate the results in around thirty constituencies.
This rate is down on the previous referendum. In 2019 the new Constitution had been approved by nearly 87% of voters, for a participation of 90.15%.
“Yes won by a lower score compared to other elections, but by a really large margin,” said Arturo Lopez-Levy, a Cuban political scientist at Holy Names University in California.
The new code, which replaces the old one dating from 1975 on Monday, is particularly progressive. It defines marriage as the union of “two people”, thus legalizing homosexual marriage, and authorizes homoparental adoption.
It strengthens the rights of children, the elderly and the disabled, and introduces the possibility of legally recognizing several fathers and mothers, in addition to the biological parents. It authorizes non-profit surrogacy.
Political scientist Rafael Hernandez, interviewed by AFP, confirmed that with the new text Cuba was “at the forefront” in Latin America.
“We won!! Cuba has its Family Code. Now it’s about enforcing it,” journalist and gay activist Maykel Gonzalez Vivero tweeted.
– “Almost unique opportunity” –
Several of these subjects remain sensitive in Cuba, in a society still imbued with machismo and whose communist government ostracized homosexuals in the 1960s and 1970s, before making amends. The Catholic bishops also rejected the text.
The poll also came as the country of 11.2 million people is going through a deep economic crisis and facing a record wave of emigration.
More than a year ago, in July 2021, historic protests to cries of “We are hungry” and “Freedom” also rocked the island.
President Diaz-Canel himself acknowledged on Sunday “that for such complex issues, where there is a diversity of” personal criteria, and in a difficult economic context, “people can have a sanction vote”.
Following the July 2021 protests, more than 1,300 people were arrested according to the human rights NGO Cubalex.
Among them, 790 are being prosecuted and about 500 have already been sentenced to terms of up to 25 years in prison.
Opponents of the government were also divided over the new law, some supporting the text while disassociating themselves from power, others calling for voting against or abstaining.
We must not “interpret this vote as support for the regime”, sociologist and dissident Manuel Cuesta Morua told AFP. “Many activists in the LGBT community want profound change and have seen…an almost unique opportunity to advance certain rights.”
