Polls have been opened across Cuba for elections to the National Assembly, the island’s highest legislative body.
Polling stations opened their doors at 7 a.m. local time (11 a.m. GMT) on Sunday, and more than eight million people are eligible to vote.
There are 470 candidates fighting for 470 seats, with no opposition challengers and no campaigning. Most 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 Raul Castro, 91, are among the candidates.
Polling stations close at 6pm (10pm GMT). Some 175,600 students guard the ballot boxes.
The legislators will be responsible for nominating a presidential candidate, who will be chosen by a common vote. Miguel Diaz-Canel, leader of the Communist Party of Cuba (PCC), is expected to win a second term.
The vote comes as Cuba is facing its worst economic crisis in decades, with food shortages, an unprecedented wave of migration, galloping inflation and crippling US sanctions.
Non-voters have been a defining feature of recent elections, which 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. The opposition advocated abstention as a sign of rejection of the electoral system
Teresa Bo of Al Jazeera, reporting from Havana, said the majority of the population was struggling amid rising inflation and recurring blackouts.
“The government will not tolerate dissent and so all eyes will be on the abstention rate because it is the only way people can express their dissatisfaction,” she said.
Omar Everleny, an economist, told Al Jazeera that the government must work to transform the state-dominated economy.
“The country needs a market. It doesn’t have to be a market economy, but Cuban socialism. The examples are Vietnam and China. We need an example of a one-party system that has survived.”
Brian Nichols, the United States Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs, criticized Cuba’s elections on Friday, saying the Cuban people “deserve to vote” for their representatives with freedom.
“Cubans will once again be denied a proper election to their National Assembly on Sunday,” Nichols said on Twitter. “If the Communist Party is the only option and closed committees choose candidates who run unopposed in the elections, there is no democracy, only autocracy and misery. Cubans deserve to choose,” he said.
After Nichols’ criticism, Diaz-Canel lashed out against the US at the Ibero-American Summit in the Dominican Republic. The president condemned the US trade embargo against Cuba and Washington’s decision to keep the island on a list of countries supporting “terrorism”.
“The US government is determined to destabilize our country and destroy the Cuban revolution,” he said Saturday.
Opposition in the country has eroded since anti-government protests last July led to hundreds of trials and prison sentences for crimes ranging from disorderly conduct to vandalism and sedition.
Thousands of protesters had raised concerns about the food supply and the authorities’ handling of the coronavirus pandemic.
Some have since chosen to emigrate, while others say they were forced into exile. Those who remain say the government’s response has had a chilling effect on dissent.
After US-backed leader Fulgencio Batista was ousted in 1959, Cuba became a one-party state led by Fidel Castro and his successors. Since then, the PCC has surpassed all expectations by surviving decades of economic isolation and the disintegration of the Soviet Union, a key ally.