The Cuban Presidential Election of 1905

Abstract This chapter examines the 1905 presidential elections in Cuba, a contest with profound implications for Cuba’s status as an independent republic. Its fraudulent nature encapsulated the most pressing political and social struggles of the previous half century of Cuba’s history. Although electoral fraud and political violence clearly played a central role in early twentieth-century Cuban electoral politics, these practices were first implemented after independence not by Cuban politicians alone. Rather US businessmen and military officials, inspired by the political machines of the United States, engineered electoral outcomes, beginning during the first US military occupation of Cuba (1899–1902). Cuban political elites of all orientations not only operated within the historical tradition of US-sponsored electoral fraud but also learned to manipulate the threat of renewed US intervention.