Cuba Says Parliamentary Election Turnout Up From Earlier Votes
Date
3/27/2023 3:01:31 PM
(MENAFN- The Peninsula) AFP
Havana: Turnout for Cuba's parliamentary elections at the weekend was almost 76 percent, the national electoral commission said on Monday, an increase on the two previous votes.
All 470 candidates were successfully elected to the 470 seats in the National Assembly, though the communist government does not allow opposition candidates to mount a challenge.
What was in question in the vote was the rate of abstention.
Cubans can refuse to participate in elections to show dissatisfaction with their government.
The opposition had called on citizens to abstain, with one Twitter account calling the vote a farce.
The official turnout number was comfortably above the 68.5 percent that voted in last November's municipal elections.
It was also a slight increase on the 74 percent who turned out for a referendum on a new family code in September.
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However, it was some way off the 90 percent turnout for the 2019 referendum on a new constitution.
The 470 lawmakers -- 263 women and 207 men -- will now serve a five-year term.
Voters had two choices on their ballots: they could tick the names of any number of individual candidates, or otherwise select the "vote for all" option.
Candidates needed a minimum of 50 percent to be elected.
Alina Balseiro, president of the electoral commission, said 72 percent of voters selected the vote for all option.
However, the opposition scoffed at the turnout figures, with dissident Manuel Cuesta Morua of the Council for the Democratic Transition in Cuba warning about "the government's electoral mathematics."
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