Cuban authorities have said voters elected all 470 lawmakers to the country’s National Assembly after the Caribbean island held parliamentary elections with no opposition candidates.
Election officials said on Monday initial turnout was 75.92 percent, higher than participation in municipal elections in November and a referendum on Cuba’s family law, which legalized same-sex marriage, in September.
“We want to thank our people … for their massive participation in this electoral process of transcendental importance to the present and future of the nation,” Alina Balseiro, president of Cuba’s National Electoral Council, said on state television.
Participation in Sunday’s elections was widely seen by both pro- and anti-government groups as a litmus test to gauge support for the Cuban leadership at a time of deep economic crisis and growing social unrest.
On Twitter, Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel hailed the vote as a “victory” for the Cuban people. add on Monday that the high turnout was a “home run”.
The country’s 23,648 polling stations closed at 7 p.m. local time (11 p.m. GMT) on Sunday, an hour later than initially announced by authorities.
The government of Cuba does not allow opposition, so most parliamentary candidates are members of the Communist Party of Cuba (PCC). Candidates still need to receive 50 percent of the vote to be elected.
Opposition groups, mainly outside Cuba, had encouraged voters to stay home in protest, saying the elections had no meaning in a one-party system without formal opposition or international oversight.
Cuba monitors its own elections and does not allow independent, international observers to monitor the proceedings.
The US embassy in Cuba denounced the vote as “undemocratic”.
Elections without a choice – such as this weekend’s National Assembly elections in Cuba – are anti-democratic. The Cuban people deserve real choices in real elections with candidates from more than one political party and outside the Communist Party.
— Embajada de los Estados Unidos in Cuba (@USEmbCuba) March 27, 2023
“The Cuban people deserve real choices in real elections with candidates from more than one political party and outside the Communist Party,” the embassy wrote on Twitter.
On Sunday, Cuban voters had two choices: they could tick the names of any number of individual candidates, or they could select the “vote for all” option.
Carlos Diego Herrera, a 54-year-old blacksmith in Havana, told the AFP news agency: “I voted for the unified vote because, despite the needs and difficulties this country may have, I could not imagine” not voting. .
He said abstinence would be like voting “for those who want to crush us, the Yankees”.
Lawmakers elected on Sunday will serve five years. At their first session, scheduled for April, they will choose the next president of Cuba from among their ranks.
The country’s president, Diaz-Canel, who won a seat in the legislature on Sunday, is expected to be re-elected by lawmakers.
The new batch of lawmakers is also expected to pass laws regulating controversial issues, including the regulation of the press and the right to protest in Cuba.
Balseiro, the election official, said 72 percent of voters chose the ballot option that allowed them to vote for all candidates at once, meaning the 470 contenders were all elected.
“These preliminary results validate the election of the 470 candidates proposed as deputies to the (National Assembly), (each) with more than 50 percent of the valid votes cast,” Balseiro said.
Officials said just over 90 percent of votes cast were considered valid, with 6.2 percent left blank and 3.5 percent declared null and void.
