By Marc Frank

HAVANA (Reuters) – Cubans overwhelmingly authorised same-sex marriage and adoption in a government-backed Sunday referendum that additionally strengthened ladies’s rights, the nationwide electoral fee stated on Monday.

Greater than 3.9 million voters voted to ratify the code (66.9%), whereas 1.95 million opposed ratification (33%), Alina Balseiro Gutierrez, chair of the fee, stated Monday on public tv.

“Justice has been served,” Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel wrote in a tweet.

“He’s paying a debt to a number of generations of Cuban women and men, whose household initiatives have been ready for this regulation for years,” he stated.

The 100-page “household code” legalizes same-sex marriage and civil unions, permits same-sex {couples} to undertake kids, and promotes the equal sharing of home rights and tasks between women and men.

Preliminary outcomes from the electoral fee confirmed that 74% of the 8.4 million Cubans eligible to vote took half in Sunday’s referendum.

There are not any impartial observers of the Cuban elections, though residents can observe the rely of their constituency. Scattered native experiences of district counts on social media appeared to match the official outcomes.

The announcement of the outcomes got here as Diaz-Canel chaired an emergency assembly because the Caribbean island braced for Hurricane Ian to cross its western tip early Tuesday.

Official Twitter accounts (NYSE:) confirmed the room erupting in applause and the president leaning again and smiling on the information. The Cuban president led the marketing campaign for the adoption of the code.

By Cuban requirements, Sunday’s turnout was comparatively modest and a 33% “no” vote comparatively massive within the communist-ruled nation, the place earlier referendums have seen the federal government’s place obtain close to unanimous approval.

The dissent is a sign of each the best way Cuba is evolving and the present dire financial state of affairs, which has seen lengthy energy outages and queues for meals, drugs and gas.

Sunday’s vote was additionally the primary of its form as most residents gained entry to the web, permitting dissenting opinions to unfold extra extensively. (This story has been up to date to appropriate the reference to the referendum being the primary because the legalization of cell web within the final paragraph)