Cuba praises success of national election, opposition groups criticize

The Cuban government announced on Monday (27) that the country’s voters chose all 470 candidates for the National Assembly at the polls over the weekend, calling the results a “home run”, in reference to the best possible play in a match. baseball, while opposition groups criticized the elections as a farce.

Election officials said on Monday the initial turnout was 75.9%, beating turnout in municipal elections in November and a referendum on Cuba’s family code, which legalized gay marriage in the country, in September.

“We want to thank our people… for participating in a widespread way in this electoral process of transcendental importance for the present and future of the nation,” Alina Balseiro, president of Cuba’s National Electoral Council, told state television.

Participation in Sunday’s election was widely seen by pro-government and anti-government groups as a way to gauge support for Cuba’s communist leadership at a time of deep economic crisis and growing social unrest.

Although three out of four Cubans voted on Sunday, that rate was still nearly 10 percentage points below turnout in the 2018 legislative election and well below every previous election under former President Fidel Castro, when nearly all Cubans of voting age used to vote.

President Miguel Díaz-Canel, who led a government campaign to boost turnout on Sunday, called the results a “victory” for Cuba.

“Numbers say more than words,” Díaz-Canel said on Twitter. “It’s a clean home run.”