OUR REPUBLICAN PRESIDENT:

[T]he US president urged the Cuban leadership to move away from a one-party state towards a democratic system of government, saying America's progress through the years was precisely a result of its democratic ideals.

"I believe citizens should be free to speak their mind without fear - to organise and to criticise their government, and to protest peacefully, and that the rule of law should not include arbitrary detentions of people who exercise those rights," he stated on the last day of his three-day visit to Cuba. "I believe voters should be able to choose their governments in free and democratic elections."

Obama, the first sitting American president to visit Cuba in nearly 90 years, said democracy is not perfect but that it "gives individuals the capacity to be catalysts". He pointed to the diverse field of candidates vying for a presidential nomination in the US as an example.

"You had two Cuban Americans in the Republican Party, running against the legacy of a black man who is president, while arguing that they're the best person to beat the Democratic nominee who will either be a woman or a Democratic socialist," he said to laughter from the crowd. Who would have believed that back in 1959? That's a measure of our progress as a democracy."

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