2 Cuba Natives Seek Mayoralty of Miami Today

This city with a salsa beat, booming Latin commerce and an increasing Cuban majority will today elect its first Cuban-born mayor.

Finalists in the runoff are Raul Masvidal, 43, a millionaire banker born in Havana, and Xavier Suarez, 37, a lawyer from Las Villas whose family fled communism when he was 11.

The two candidates finished atop a field of 11 in last week’s primary, and their success marks another milestone in the increasing political might of this city’s Cubans, now 36% of the registered voters.

But the runoff has not turned black and Anglo voters--who roughly split the remainder of the electorate--into bystanders. The candidates are very different Cubans with equally different constituencies.

“This is still a political contest between Miami’s three ethnic groups--the blacks, the Anglos and the Cubans,” said black psychologist Marvin Dunn, who finished fourth in the mayoral primary.

Black, Anglo Support

In fact, Masvidal’s strength largely rests among blacks and Anglos. He finished second in the primary with 28.3% of the vote, received more than half of the black votes and 34% of the Anglo votes, but only 21% from Cubans and other Latinos.

“He’s the silk-stocking candidate with all the money from the big downtown guys,” said George DePontis, a veteran Miami political consultant.

Masvidal may speak with a heavy Cuban accent, but his power base is pinned to the city’s almost exclusively Anglo downtown establishment. Until he resigned before running for mayor, he was one of two Cuban members of the so-called Non-Group, 37 behind-the-scenes power brokers who have met secretly for 14 years to map out a civic agenda.

The influence of the Non-Group--and the identity of its members--only recently has become public in newspaper accounts. “They kind of basically run Miami,” said outgoing mayor Maurice Ferre, a Puerto Rican native who finished third in the primary, losing his bid for an unprecedented seventh term.

Top Vote-Getter

Suarez finished first in the primary, with 28.9% of the vote. He got nearly half the Cuban votes. They think of him as a staunch anti-communist--a vital credential here, even in local elections.

A suave, enthusiastic campaigner, Suarez has been trying to win city office since 1979. Two years ago, he barely lost the mayor’s race to Ferre.

He is a graduate of Harvard Law School and he speaks flawless English. His major efforts in the past week have been to use his charm and Americanized manners to snatch away some black and Anglo support.

Neither of the candidates has held public office and their differences on local issues--primarily crime and development--are not substantial. They each promise to bring more decorum to city commission meetings, which both liken to a circus.

Whoever wins, his impact will be limited by the nature of Miami government itself.

Mayor Has Little Power

Most administrative decisions fall to a highly paid city manager. The mayor primarily is a ceremonial chieftain. His vote counts no more than those of the four city commissioners.

Besides, the city has only 400,000 residents. What is generically referred to as Miami is really Dade County, population 1.8 million. The county has its own manager, mayor and commissioners--and a budget several times greater than the city’s.

These days the county, too, is becoming increasingly Latino. They make up about 40% of the population, and planners expect them to become a majority, perhaps as early as 1990.