WHEREAS the tyranny prepares a new and raw electoral farce for the third of November, totally behind the back of the interests of the people in the midst of the pool of blood into which the Republic has been converted in full civil war--in which the military forces retreat before the victorious push of the rebel troops--without finding formulas capable of masking the elections such as even the technical re-establishment of individual guarantees and of freedom of the press; against a citizenry, in sum, that is persecuted, in mourning and determined to recapture their liberties and rights through the definite end of the usurper regime of thieves, traitors, and murderers who have converted the fatherland into the feudal estate of their infinite ambitions.

WHEREAS the participation in the election farce constitutes an act of betrayal of the interests of the fatherland and the revolution, and is classified as opportunism on the part of those who think only of their debased personal conveniences and work in the shadows at the expense of the Republic when they serve the plans of the tyranny while the best of our people offer their lives on the battlefield.

WHEREAS it is necessary for the last time to alert the Cubans who have not yet understood the profound question that is being debated in Cuba and who, insensible to the tragedy that surrounds them, have enlisted in the company of actors of the comedy which the tyranny prepares November 3 by stubbornly lending their names as candidates for posts they never will hold.

THEREFORE, in use of the powers that are found invested in this command, the following Law No.2 is dictated about the electoral farce:

I. Everyone who takes part in the electoral farce the third day of November of 1958, as a candidate to any elective post, without prejudice to the criminal responsibility which he may incur, will be barred for a period of thirty years from the date of this law from holding a public or elective post or one by appointment by the state. the province or the municipality.

II. The period having expired in which a candidate cannot resign so that his name does not appear on the ballot, he will show his nonparticipation in the electoral farce by absenting himself from the country and previously presenting himself in the free territory of Cuba, or, in any case by reporting his resignation to the foreign press or through the broadcast means of the Rebel Army by the thirtieth of October.

III. Any political agent who dedicates himself to the corrupt system of collecting voters' registration cards will be tried by a summary court-martial and executed on the spot.

IV. The candidate to any elective post who may be captured in the zone of operations of the free territory will be tried and condemned to a penalty that may fluctuate, in accordance with the greater or lesser degree of responsibility, from ten years to the death sentence.

V. In the urban zones the death sentence may be executed against the guilty either by the rebel troops or by the militia operating in the towns and cities.

                                                                                                                                                Fidel Castro