Cuba will have Miguel Diaz-Canel as its president for another five years. The development came after Diaz-Canel clinched a second five-year term in a parliamentary vote that had him as the sole candidate.
In Cuba, political opposition to Communist Party is illegal.
Diaz-Canel’s bid to serve as the most powerful man in Havana’s corridors of power was confirmed by 97.66 percent of votes cast in the Communist Party of Cuba-aligned National Assembly, its president Esteban Lazo announced in the chamber.
Díaz-Canel succeeds the brothers Fidel and Raúl Castro, making him the first non-Castro leader of Cuba since the revolution.
On March 27, 2023, Cuban authorities announced that voters elected all 470 legislators for the Caribbean island nation’s National Assembly.
Election officials announced the initial turnout to be 75.92 percent, topping participation in municipal elections in November and a referendum on the Cuban family code, which legalised gay marriage, in September 2023. Officials said that just over 90 percent of votes cast had been deemed valid, with 6.2 percent left blank and 3.5 percent annulled.
Cuba’s government does not allow opposition. Most parliamentary candidates are members of the Communist Party of Cuba (PCC).
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Candidates still must receive 50 percent of votes to be elected.
Opposition groups, mostly based outside of Cuba, had encouraged voters to stay home in protest, saying the election had no meaning in a one-party system with no opposition.
The United States embassy in Cuba denounced the vote as “undemocratic”, in which people were supposed to tick the names of any number of candidates or select “vote for all” option.
“The Cuban people deserve real choices in real elections that feature candidates from more than a single political party and beyond the Communist Party,” the embassy wrote on Twitter on March 27, 2023.
The second term of President Díaz-Canel is expected to pass laws governing controversial issues including the regulation of the press, and the right to protest in Cuba.
(With inputs from agencies)
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