Some 8.3 million Cubans are summoned to participate tomorrow in the first national legislative elections since a new Constitution was approved in 2019 and against which the opposition called for abstention.
The elections will elect the 470 legislators who will serve for the next five years in the National Assembly of People’s Power, the island’s unicameral Parliament.
This is a key step in institutional renewal, part of a process that began with the appointment of applicants through local commissions.
According to data published by the National Assembly itself, more than 55 percent of the candidacies correspond to women, with a proportion of university education that exceeds 95 percent.
The average age of the candidates stands at 46 years, although the list includes names of veterans such as former President Raúl Castro, who at 91 wants to continue on the front line, reported the Europa Press news agency.
The current president, Miguel Díaz-Canel, is also aspiring for a seat, and among the applicants is also Elián González, the rafter boy who in 1999 was the protagonist of a diplomatic conflict between Cuba and the United States after being intercepted off the coast of Florida.
The Assembly has within its power the legislative work within Cuba but, once constituted on April 19, it must also determine the leadership of the country’s Government. Thus, among its powers is to appoint the Council of State, as well as the president and vice president of Cuba.
The current president Díaz-Canel, leader of the Communist Party of Cuba (PCC), the only legal political force on the island, is scheduled to be elected for a second term.
The parliamentary renewal is the first since the approval in 2019 of a new Constitution that included, among other issues, an electoral law by which, to participate in the elections, voters must be over 16 years old, be registered in the electoral register and have lived on the island for at least the last two years.
The main voices of the opposition continue to denounce that there are no tangible advances towards greater democratization and, in this sense, the abstention rate, which has increased in recent years, will be closely watched.
After figures below 10% between 1976 and 2013, the rate grew to 14% in the 2018 parliamentary elections, and rose to 31% in the municipal elections last November.
The lower participation goes hand in hand with social discontent in Cuba, with an economy in a critical situation due to shortages of food, fuel, medicine and electricity, which contributed to the protests of July 2021, which are believed to be the largest since the 1959 revolution commanded by former leader Fidel Castro.
The Cuban government mainly attributes the economic crisis to the consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic that affected tourism, an important sector for the island’s income, and to the blockade imposed by the United States more than 60 years ago.
Source: Ambito
