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Cubans Re-Elect Castro To Seat in Parliament

By WILL WEISSERT, The Associated Press

Published: January 21, 2008

HAVANA - Cubans ratified a slate of parliamentary candidates Sunday including Fidel Castro, the ailing 81-year-old leader who has not been seen in public for nearly 18 months.

Only one choice appeared for each post in districts across the country and there was no campaigning. The Communist Party is the only party allowed, but the government says membership is not a prerequisite for the parliament that rubber-stamps official party policy.

Still, Cubans lined up before dawn to cast their ballots. About 8.4 million voters were being asked to back 614 top communists, career politicians, musicians and athletes for posts in the legislature, known as the National Assembly. Preliminary results are expected to be announced this afternoon.

Castro, Cuba's unchallenged "Maximum Leader" since 1959, provisionally ceded power in July 2006 after emergency intestinal surgeries and is still recovering. But he has remained head of the Council of State, the island's governing body, and re-election to parliament from Santiago in eastern Cuba makes him eligible to be named to the post again.

Candidates lose if they do not get more than 50 percent of the vote, although National Assembly officials don't remember that happening since Cubans began voting for parliament in 1993.

Castro's younger brother Raul, 76, who has been governing during Fidel Castro's illness, announced that the new parliament will meet Feb. 24 and declare a new Council of State. The elder Castro has run unopposed for council head in past parliament votes, but Raul did not say whether he again would be named council leader or would retire.

The U.S. government and opposition leaders dismissed the election as a sham and say reported turnouts lead to a false sense of unanimity.

Many Cubans feel compelled to vote because failing to do so can draw unwanted attention from pro-government neighborhood watch committees, whose support can be needed to get jobs, housing or other official approvals.

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