Cuba is awaiting the outcomes of the legislative elections, and the opposition warns of “electoral arithmetic”
The Cuban authorities succeeded in mobilizing voters Sunday for the election to the Nationwide Meeting, the result of which was inevitable, because it reversed a latest development of abstention within the communist-ruled nation.
As much as eight million eligible voters chosen from amongst 470 candidates on the poll — 263 girls and 207 males — are vying for 470 seats in Congress.
However what was actual was the variety of Cubans who refused to vote.
The opposition referred to as on residents to abstain from voting, and one opposition Twitter account described the vote as a farce.
Voting just isn’t obligatory and abstention has risen steadily in recent times.
The 23,648 polling stations closed at 7:00 pm (2300 GMT) on Sunday, an hour after authorities initially introduced.
In line with the newest provisional figures launched by the Nationwide Election Council, turnout was 70.33 % as of 5:00 p.m.
That represents a modest enhance from the 68.5 % who voted in municipal elections final November, the bottom turnout for the reason that island’s present electoral system was established in 1976.
Final September, about 74 % of eligible Cubans voted in a referendum for a brand new household regulation, down from the 90 % turnout in a 2019 referendum for a brand new structure.
The Cuban communist authorities doesn’t permit dissent, so most parliamentary candidates are members of the Communist Celebration of Cuba (PCC).
Candidates should nonetheless obtain 50 % of the vote to be elected.
Voters had two choices: they might choose the names of any variety of particular person candidates, or they might select the “vote for all” possibility.
“I voted for the united vote as a result of, regardless of the wants and difficulties this nation can face, I couldn’t think about” abstaining, Carlos Diego Herrera, a 54-year-old blacksmith in Havana, informed AFP.
Abstaining, he mentioned, could be like voting for “those that need to crush us, Yankees.”
Opponents query Washington’s imposition of sanctions on the island nation since 1962, three years after the communist revolution that noticed Castro take energy after toppling US-backed dictator Fulgencio Batista.
Scholar Rachel Vega, 19, mentioned she had voted for all of the candidates, contemplating it “a step ahead now” that will “enhance the scenario within the nation.”
Among the many candidates is President Miguel Diaz-Canel, in addition to his predecessor, 91-year-old Raul Castro.
“With a united vote, we defend the unity of the nation, the unity of the revolution, our future and our socialist structure,” Diaz-Canel, 62, mentioned after voting in Santa Clara, 175 miles (280 km) southeast of Havana.
The turnout figures had been derided by the opposition, with dissident Manuel Cuesta Mauroa of Cuba’s Democratic Transition Council warning of “the federal government’s electoral arithmetic”.
On Twitter, he mentioned: “At 9 a.m. she reported 18.2 % of voters had voted. At 11 a.m. she mentioned 41.66 % — in lower than two hours, turnout had elevated by 23.46 factors.” “Not possible!!! The polling stations are empty.”
Remaining numbers can be launched on Monday.
(AFP)
