Fidel Castro took to Cuban state media to voice his contempt for the GOP Florida primary race occurring less than 100 miles north of his Gulf communist paradise.
In an opinion column published Wednesday, the Cuban revolutionary leader called the GOP presidential nomination race “the greatest competition of idiocy and ignorance that has ever been.”
His words came following the first GOP Florida primary debate, in which questions about Cuba had added weight. Castro did not like the answers.
“The selection of a Republican candidate for the presidency of this globalized and expansive empire is — and I mean this seriously — the greatest competition of idiocy and ignorance that has ever been,” wrote the retired leader.
The GOP candidates in Florida have been working hard to pull in the hefty Cuban vote — which comprises the majority of the Sunshine State’s estimated 400,000 Latino Republican voters.
At the debate Tuesday former Massachusites Gov. Mitt Romney criticized President Obama’s efforts to reduce travel restrictions with Cuba.
“This is the wrong time for that, with this kind of heroics going on,” Romney said. “We want to stand with the people of Cuba that want freedom. We want to move that effort forward not by giving in and saying we lost, but by saying we will fight for democracy.”
Former Speaker Newt Gingrich has also spent time appealing to the Florida Cuban vote.
“The people of Cuba deserve freedom,” said Newt Gingrich to applause this week according to Fox News.
The Associated Press reports that Castro also disputed the international characterizations about the death of Wilman Villar, saying that he was not a dissident but a criminal.
Villar died in a Cuban jail after a 50-day hunger strike.
The former Cuban leader did not acknowledge a question regarding what the candidates would do if he died. Romney answered “thank heavens” and Gingrich speculated that Castro would go to hell.