HAVANA: Cubans overwhelmingly approved same-sex marriage and adoption in a government-backed Sunday Sept. 25 referendum that also strengthened women’s rights, the national electoral commission said Monday.
More than 3.9 million voters voted in favor of ratifying the code (66.9%), while 1.95 million opposed ratification (33%), President Alina Balseiro Gutierrez said on Monday. of the commission, on public television.
“Justice has been served,” Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel wrote in a tweet.
“He is paying a debt to several generations of Cuban men and women, whose family projects have been waiting for this law for years,” he said.
The 100-page “family code” legalizes same-sex marriage and civil unions, allows same-sex couples to adopt children, and promotes the equal sharing of domestic rights and responsibilities between men and women.
Preliminary results from the electoral commission showed that 74 percent of the 8.4 million Cubans eligible to vote took part in Sunday’s referendum.
There are no independent observers of the Cuban elections, although citizens can observe the count in their constituency. Scattered local reports of district counts on social media appeared to match the official results.
The announcement of the results came as Diaz-Canel chaired an emergency meeting as the Caribbean island braced for Hurricane Ian to pass its western tip early Tuesday.
Official Twitter accounts showed the room erupting in applause and the president leaning back and smiling at the news. The Cuban president led the campaign for the adoption of the code.
By Cuban standards, Sunday’s turnout was relatively modest and a 33% “no” vote relatively large in the communist-ruled country, where previous referendums have seen the government’s position receive near unanimous approval.
The dissent is an indication of both the way Cuba is evolving and the current dire economic situation, which has seen long power outages and queues for food, medicine and fuel.
Sunday’s vote was also the first of its kind since the legalization of mobile internet in 2018, allowing dissenting opinions to spread more widely.