Big turnout in Cuba's municipal elections

Apr 26, 2010, 15:53 GMT

   Havana - Cubans turned out in large numbers to vote in elections to choose the 15,000 representatives on municipal councils, officials said.

   The Cuban leadership had urged people to turn out for Sunday's polls against what it alleged was a media campaign whipped up against the country by the United States and Europe in recent weeks.

   Shortly before the polling stations closed, around 8.1 million people had voted, a turnout of almost 93 per cent, according to official figures.

   Local representatives are elected every two and a half years. Candidates cannot freely stand for election but are chosen by the Communist government's Committees for the Defence of the Revolution, which are local monitoring groups that also report counterrevolutionary activities.

   Cuba had attracted international criticism after the death of the dissident and political prisoner Orlando Zapata in February. He died in hospital after an 83-day hunger strike.

   'That is not just a vote for a candidate,' the deputy head of the National Electoral Commission, Ruben Perez Rodriguez, said on television. 'It is more a yes for the motherland, for Cuba, for the revolution and for socialism. It is a yes for the political system that we have adopted, that we defend and love.'