Cubans vote on Sunday to renew their National Assembly for the next five years in an unsurprising election, 470 candidates running for 470 seats, but where the issue will be the abstention rate, which has been rising steadily in recent years.
Eight million voters are called upon to ratify the 470 candidates, 263 women and 207 men, mostly members of the Cuban Communist Party (PCC, single party), destined to occupy the 470 seats of the National Assembly of People’s Power.
The 23,648 polling stations opened at 7 a.m. local time without incident, and must close at 6 p.m. In Cuba, voting is not compulsory, but opposition is prohibited.
Voters have two options on their ballot: tick the name of one or more candidates in the constituency or tick the option “vote for all” which implies support for the 470 candidates.
“I voted for all, because despite the needs, the difficulties that this country may have, I cannot conceive of giving my vote”, while abstaining, “to those who want to crush us, trample us, the Yankees!” Carlos Diego Herrera, 54, told AFP at a polling station in Havana, referring to the United States, which has imposed an embargo on the island since 1962.
Rachel Vega, a 19-year-old student, also voted for all candidates. “I think it’s a step forward at this time, that we young people can feel that we are contributing, by voting, to improving the situation of the country,” she said.
Among the 470 candidates are notably the president and first secretary of the PCC, Miguel Diaz-Canel, 62 years old, and the ex-leader Raul Castro, 91 years old.
“With the united vote [pour tous]we defend the unity of the country, the unity of the revolution, our future, our socialist Constitution”, declared Mr. Diaz-Canel, after having voted in the city of Santa-Clara, 280 km from Havana, where he is a candidate.
” Waste of time “
This “for all” vote should also make it possible to increase the legitimacy of the candidates who must obtain more than 50% of the votes to be elected, while electoral participation has continued to decline recently.
It reached 68.5% in the municipal elections in November, the lowest since the entry into force of the electoral system in 1976. It was 74% in September during the referendum on the Family Code, and 90% during the referendum on the Constitution in 2019.
A 19-year-old Cuban, who did not wish to give her name, told AFP that she would not vote on Sunday. “I don’t think the vote […] will bring about positive change for our country. I think it’s a waste of time, ”said this young employee of a kiosk in the capital.
This legislative election comes at a time when Cuba is going through its worst economic crisis in 30 years, with galloping inflation and an unprecedented wave of migration, under the combined effect of the consequences of the pandemic, the strengthening of American sanctions and the country’s economic weaknesses. .
In the weeks leading up to the polls, candidates, including the president, waged an unusual grassroots campaign to listen to Cuban grievances.
“The first challenge” of the new Assembly “is to restructure its entire working system in the relationship between deputies and the population,” Diaz-Canel said after voting.
Deprived of candidates, the opposition called for abstention on social networks.
“Don’t participate in this farce. Do not vote on Sunday,” the account “Cuba says NO to dictatorship” wrote on Twitter.
The dissident Manuel Cuesta Morua, member of the Council for Democratic Transition in Cuba, believes that there is now “a sociological force that is becoming the majority political party in the country, the party of abstentionism”.
In the second half, Miguel Diaz-Canel, the first president to lead the country after the years of power of the brothers Fidel and Raul Castro, should be a candidate for re-election before the deputies for a second and final term.