Cubans elect new parliament, endorse Castro

[Stan]

Cubans elect new parliament, endorse Castro

Updated Sun. Jan. 20 2008 8:42 PM ET

CTV.ca News Staff

Cubans elected a new parliament on Sunday, ratifying a slate of new candidates, including Fidel Castro.

The vote was the first step in determining 81-year-old Castro's future influence over the country.

A single candidate appeared on the ballot for each district, with the Communist party as the only choice. No campaigning was permitted.

The new parliament will meet Feb. 24 to select a governing council of states, which will then elect a president. It is then that Castro's official status will be determined.

Castro has not been seen in public for nearly 18 months and has said that he is too sick to campaign. He ceded power to his younger brother Raul in 2006, following emergency intestinal surgery.

William LeoGrande, professor of Latin American politics and Dean of School of Public Affairs at American University, told CTV Newsnet on Sunday that the parliament will likely elect Raul Castro as his brother's successor.

"Raul has been running the government as acting president ever since Fidel fell ill about a year and a half ago, and the country's remained quite stable under his leadership," he said.

More than eight million voters were asked to back Castro in the election for Cuba's legislature, the National Assembly.

Castro bowed out of campaigning on Wednesday saying in an essay published in state-run media that he was not healthy enough to speak to the masses.

"I am not physically able to speak directly to the citizens of the municipality where I was nominated for our elections," he wrote.

In recent columns, Castro has said that he does not intend to cling to power, although this may not spell any dramatic change in Cuba's leadership.

"I think in the near term and probably the medium term as well, the people who will run Cuba after Fidel passes from the scene are the people who've been running it under his direction for the last few years," LeoGrande said.

Although he no longer runs the day-to-day government, Castro still heads Cuba's governing body. His re-election to parliament is necessary to retain that position.

In an interview with CTV Newsnet, Ken Frankel, director of the Canadian Foundation for the Americas said that the result of the council vote may not be relevant to Castro.

"Whether or not he's elected president at the end of February, which is somewhat doubtful, is somewhat academic at this point because when he handed over the power to his brother Raul in July a year and a half ago, the transition had begun," he said.

"It looks like he's being phased out, or certainly his influence is a little bit waning," Frankel said.

Democracy questioned

Any citizen is allowed to run in parliamentary elections but Cuba's one-party policy has long been chided for falling short of the democratic process.

While candidates aren't required to be a member of the party, it's unlikely anyone but a card-carrying comrade of the Partido Comunista de Cuba would assume a leadership role.

Democracy in Cuba generally occurs from the grassroots up, as demonstrated in Cuba's Candidates' Commission's latest numbers.

According to Amarelis Perez, a spokesperson with the candidates' commission, 28 per cent of candidates running in the socialist republic were "workers or peasants" and 43 per cent were women. Only 37 per cent of those running for one of the 614 seats in parliament were incumbents.

Officials expected a high voter turnout on Sunday, estimating at least 90 per cent of Cuba's eligible voters would line up at the polls.

"Every revolutionary has an obligation to vote," Oramis Mirabal, a 26-year-old in Old Havana told The Associated Press, adding that he felt "very represented" by Cuban legislators.

However, many Cubans quietly complain about the country's electoral system.

Oscar Espinosa Chepe, a dissident who was sentenced to 20 years in prison during a crackdown in 2003, said high voter turnout creates the impression of "false unanimity." Source