Polls open in Cuba for legislative elections

Polls have been opened throughout Cuba for elections to the National Assembly, the island country’s highest legislative body.

Polling stations opened their doors at 7:00 local time (11:00 GMT) on Sunday, and more than eight million people are able to vote.

There are 470 candidates running for 470 seats, with no opposition rivals and no campaign. Most of the candidates for the Cuban parliament are members of the Communist Party, the only legal party on the island.

Historical figures of the revolution, such as former President Raúl Castro, 91, are among the candidates.

Polls are scheduled to close at 6 pm (22:00 GMT). Some 175,600 students are in charge of guarding the ballot boxes.

Lawmakers will be in charge of nominating a presidential candidate, who will be chosen in a vote among themselves. Miguel Díaz-Canel, leader of the Communist Party of Cuba (PCC), is expected to win a second term.

The vote comes as Cuba faces its worst economic crisis in decades, with food shortages, an unprecedented wave of migration, runaway inflation and crippling US sanctions.

Non-voters have been a defining feature in recent elections that experts say could undermine the legitimacy of Cuba’s next government. Turnout in last November’s municipal elections fell below 70 percent for the first time. He the opposition has advocated abstention as a sign of rejection of the electoral system.

Al Jazeera’s Teresa Bo, reporting from Havana, said the majority of the population was struggling amid runaway inflation and recurring blackouts.

“The government does not tolerate dissent and that is why all eyes are going to be on abstentionism because it is the only way people have to express their discontent,” he said.

Omar Everleny, an economist, told Al Jazeera that the government should work to transform the state-dominated economy.

“The country needs a market. That does not need to be a market economy but Cuban socialism. Examples are Vietnam and China. We need to have an example of a one-party system that has managed to survive.”

Brian Nichols, US Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs, criticized the elections in Cuba on Friday, saying that the Cuban people “deserve to choose” their representatives freely.

“On Sunday, the Cuban people will once again be denied a real election for their National Assembly,” Nichols said on Twitter. “When the only option is the Communist Party and closed committees choose candidates to run without opposition, there is no democracy, only autocracy and misery. We Cubans deserve to choose,” she said.

Following Nichols’ criticism, Díaz-Canel lashed out at the US at the Ibero-American Summit in the Dominican Republic. The president condemned the US trade embargo on Cuba and Washington’s decision to keep the island on a list of countries sponsoring “terrorism.”

“The United States government is determined to destabilize our country and destroy the Cuban revolution,” he said Saturday.

The country’s opposition has been destroyed since the anti-government protests. last july brought to hundreds being judged and jailed for crimes ranging from disorderly conduct to vandalism and sedition.

Thousands of protesters expressed concern about the food supply and the authorities’ handling of the coronavirus pandemic.

Since then, some have chosen to emigrate, while others say they were forced into exile. Those who remain say the government’s reaction has had a chilling effect on dissent.

After US-backed leader Fulgencio Batista was overthrown in 1959, Cuba became a one-party state led by Fidel Castro and his successors. Since then, the CCP has defied expectations by surviving decades of economic isolation and the breakup of the Soviet Union, a key ally.