Havana, (EFE).- Participation in the parliamentary elections this Sunday in Cuba amounted to 18.15% at 9 in the morning, 2 hours after the opening of the schools, reported the National Electoral Council (CEN ).
This rate is slightly higher than the 18% of the same time in the previous parliamentarians (2018), for its part, in the referendum on the Family Code, last September, the participation at that time was 16.31%, while which in the municipal elections of November stood at 19.36%.
The vice president of the CEN, Tomás Amarán, assured that this level of participation was “really acceptable” and pointed out that there were different voting customs depending on regions and ages.
More than 8.1 million people are called to the polls this Sunday, including 13,000 16-year-olds who can exercise the right to vote for the first time.
Voters can go to one of the 23,648 polling stations set up in 12,427 constituencies between 7:00 a.m. and 6:00 p.m. local time (11:00-22:00 GMT).
These elections are a key step in the country’s institutional renewal that began with the local elections last November.
The process will culminate when the ANPP, in one of its first decisions, appoints the country’s new president, a position expected to be held for a second term by Miguel Díaz-Canel, leader of the Communist Party of Cuba (PCC), the only legal party .
A total of 470 candidates are running for an equal number of positions in the unicameral Cuban Legislative Assembly and voters may or may not support them.
Among them, there are historical figures of the revolution, such as former President Raúl Castro, 91, ministers, senior members of the PCC, bureaucrats, musicians, scientists, intellectuals and heads of state companies.
Only those supported by more than 50% of the valid votes cast will be able to take their seat. In the last parliamentarians all achieved their position in the elections. There are various legal provisions to fill those positions that may become vacant.
The candidates were selected by the so-called mass organizations, associations in the orbit of the PCC, and approved for the municipal assemblies of popular power, where their militants are the majority. Formally, neither the parties nor their youth nominate.
Almost all the candidates in these elections belong to the PCC or its youth, in the current ANPP they account for 96.5% of the deputies, according to the website of the Cuban Parliament.
The importance of abstention
The Cuban government, the PCC and the state institutions and media have urged citizens in recent weeks to vote en bloc for all the candidates proposed by each district.
From the opposition, inside and outside the island, abstention has been advocated as a sign of rejection of the electoral formula in particular and the Cuban political system in general.
After abstention figures below 10% between 1976 and 2013, the rate rose to 14% in the 2018 parliamentary elections, the last comparable elections held in Cuba.
The two previous times that Cubans have gone to the polls were in the referendum on the Family Code, last September, when abstention was close to 26%, and in the November municipal elections, where it rose to 31%. , an all-time high.
According to the experts, a high abstention rate would show legitimacy problems because, unlike other political systems, the Cuban one is based on the collective, participation and unity.
