ART. 97. Universal, equal, and secret suffrage is established as a right, duty, and function of all Cuban citizens.

This function shall be obligatory, and all persons who, except because of obstacles admitted by law, fail to vote in an election or referendum, shall be subject to the penalties that the law may impose, and shall be deprived of the capacity to hold a judgeship or any public office during the two years following the date of the infraction.
 

ART. 98. The people express their opinion upon the questions submitted to them by means of the referendum.

In every election or referendum, the absolute majority of validly cast votes shall decide, save for the exceptions established by the Constitution. The results shall be made public in an official manner as soon as they are determined by the competent body.

A vote shall be counted solely and exclusively for the person in whose favor it was cast, and may not be accumulated the benefit of any other candidate. Moreover, in cases of proportional representation, votes cast in favor of the candidate shall be counted in order to determine the party s quotient.
 

ART. 99. All Cubans of one sex or the other, and more than twenty years of age, are voters, with the exception of the following:

1st. Inmates of asylums.

2nd. Those who are mentally incapacitated, with a previous judicial declaration of their incapacity.

3rd. Those judicially disqualified for criminal cause.

4th. Individuals belonging to the armed forces or to the police, who are in active service.
 

ART. 100. The electoral code shall provide for an identification book, with the photograph of the voter, his signature, and fingerprints, and the other requirements necessary for better identification.
 

ART. 101. All forms of coercion to oblige a citizen to affiliate himself, vote, or manifest his choice in any voting operation, are punishable.

This violation shall be punished, and a double penalty shall be applied, in abolition to permanent disqualification for the discharge of public once, when the coercion is practiced by an authority or agent, official, or employee of such public office, by himself or through an intermediary person.
 

ART. 102. The organization of political parties and associations is free. However, no political groupings of race, sex, or class may be formed.

For the organization of new political parties, it is necessary to present, together with the corresponding application, a number of adherents equal to or greater than two per cent of the corresponding electoral census, according as such party be national, provincial, or municipal in character. A party that in a general or special election does not obtain a number of votes representing the said two per cent shall disappear as such and shall be officially erased from the registry of parties. Candidacies may be presented only by those political parties that, having a number of affiliates not smaller than that fixed in this article, may have been organized or reorganized, according to the case, before the election. Political parties may be reorganized on one single day six months before each presidential, gubernatorial, mayoral, or conciliar election, or election for delegates to a constituent convention. The superior electoral tribunal shall officially erase all parties from the registry of parties that, having such opportunity, have not been reorganized.

The assemblies of the parties shall retain all their powers and may not be dissolve<] except by legal reorganization. In every case, the party assemblies shall be the only bodies in charge of making nominations, and this power may not in any case be delegated.
 

ART. 103. The law shall establish rules and procedures that shall guarantee the participation of minorities in the formation of the census of voters, in the organization and reorganization of political associations and parties, and in the other electoral operations, and shall assure them representation in the elective bodies of the State, Provinces, and municipalities.
 

ART. 104. All those provisions modifying electoral legislation that may be enacted after the calling of an election or referendum, or before the persons winning an election take office, or final results of a referendum are known, are null.

Those modifications that are expressly sought by the superior electoral tribunal ant] are approved by a two-thirds vote of the Congress are excepted from this prohibition.

From the call for the elections until the elected persons take once, the superior electoral tribunal shall have jurisdiction over the armed forces and over the police bodies for the sole purpose of guaranteeing the purity of the electoral function.
 

ART. 105. Officials, public workers, and employees are those who, on prior demonstration of capacity, and compliance with the other requirements and formalities established by law, may be designated by competent authority for the discharge of public duties or services, and who receive or do not receive a salary or wage charged to the budgets of the State, Province, or municipality, or autonomous bodies.
 

ART. 106. The public, civil officials, employees, and workers of all the branches of the State, those of the Provinces, municipalities, and of the autonomous bodies and corporations, are exclusively servants of the general interests of the Republic, and their irremovability is guaranteed by this Constitution, with the exception of those who may discharge political offices or hold positions of trust.
 

ART. 107. Political offices and positions of trust are:

1st. Ministers and departmental Subsecretaries; ambassadors, envoys extraordinary and ministers plenipotentiary, and directors general, the latter in cases of positions that the law may declare not to be technical.

2nd. All the personal appointees in the immediate private offices of the Ministers and departmental Subsecretaries.

3rd. The private secretaries of officials.

4th. The secretaries of the provincial and municipal administrations, the departmental chiefs of these bodies, ant] the personal appointees in the immediate private offices of the governors and mayors.

5th. Public, civil officials, employees, and workers named to positions that are temporary in character, with casual appointments the duration of which does not extend beyond the fiscal year.
 

ART.108. Admission to and promotion in public offices not excepted in the preceding article may be obtained only after the aspirants have complied with the requirements and undergone the competitive merit tests of their fitness and capacity that the law shall establish7 except in those cases which, by the nature of the duties involved, are declared exempt by law.
 

ART. 109. No administrative penalties may be imposed upon public officials employees, and workers without proper reason being previously established and only after a hearing of the interested party and with the appeals that the law may establish. Such proceedings must always be summary.
 

ART. 110. A public official, employee, or worker who replaces a person removed from his office, shall be considered a provisional substitute while the position of the substitute person is not definitely determined, and this person may claim, in this case, only the rights that belonged to him in his former position.
 

ART. 111. Compulsory retirements may be carried out only by re-creation or suppression of positions, with respect to the seniority of the persons holding such positions. Those retired shall have preferential right, in order of seniority, to hold positions having equal or analogous functions and in the same category or in the category immediately inferior, that may be established or vacated.
 

ART. 112. No person may simultaneously discharge more than one once paid, directly or indirectly, by the State, the Province, the municipalities, or the autonomous bodies and corporations, with the exception of the cases stipulated by this Constitution.

Pensions or superannuations of the State, Provinces, and municipalities are supplemental to the necessities of their beneficiaries. Persons who have property of their own fortune may receive only such a part of the pension or superannuation as may be necessary in order that, ad-deaf to other incomes, the total does not exceed the maximum pension that the law shall fix. A similar criterion shall be applied to persons receiving more than one pension.

No person may, for any reason, effectively receive a pension, superannuation, or retirement of more than 2,400 pesos a year, and a single uniform scale of payments shall be applied to all persons pensioned or superannuated.

Persons who at present enjoy pensions, superannuations, or retirements larger than 2,400 pesos annually, shall not effectively receive more than this amount per year.

Members of the Cuban army of liberation, their widows, and children, who have the right to a pension, are excepted from the provisions of the preceding paragraphs as a homage of the Republic to its liberators.
 

ART. 113. Monthly payment of superannuations and pensions for services rendered to the State, Province, or municipality in the proportion permitted by the state of the public treasury shall be an obligation of the State, and in no case shall such payments be less than fifty per cent of the basic legal amount.

The appropriations for superannuations and pensions shall be made each year in the general budget of the Nation.

No pension or superannuation shall be less than the amount that is in force as a daily wage minimum by virtue of the provisions of Article 6r of this Constitution.

Superannuations and pensions of officials and employees of the State, Province, and municipality, that are included in the general law of pensions which here governs, shall be paid in the same manner as the salaries of officials and employees in active service; the State, Province, or municipality being obligated, according to the case, to raise the funds necessary to perform this obligation.

The payment of pensions to veterans of the War of Independence and to their families shall be considered in preference to all other obligations of the State.
 

ART. 114. Entry into the notarial profession and into the body of registrars of property shall in the future be by competitive examination, regulated by law.
 

ART. 115. The raising and managing of social retirement funds may be independent, in the form determined by law; however, within four legislative terms following the promulgation of this Constitution, the Congress shall enact a law establishing the general standards by which all the existing superannuations and pensions shall be regulated, or by which such superannuations and pensions shall be created in the future, in all that relates to benefits, taxes, minimum requisites, and guarantees.
 

ART. 116. In order to decide upon questions relative to public services, a body with autonomous character is hereby established, that shall be called the tribunal of public ounces, and which is composed of seven members designated in the following manner:

One, by the plenum of the Supreme Tribunal of Justice, and who must meet the same qualifications required for a Magistrate of the said Tribunal.

One, appointed by the President of the Republic with the prior approval of the Council of Ministers, and who must have had recognized experience in administrative matters.

One, appointed by the Congress, who must possess an academic degree issued by official authority.

One, appointed by the University council from a list of three nominations made by the faculty of social sciences, of which the appointee must be a graduate.

One, by the employees of the State.

One, by the employees of the Province; and

One, by those of the municipality. The last three members must have recognized experience in the respective departments.

Decisions pronounced by the tribunal of public offices shall have force of law and shall go into immediate effect, without prejudicing the appeals that the law may establish.
 

ART. 117. The law shall establish the penalties to be imposed upon persons violating the principles contained in this section.