Cubans are voting today in elections for a new composition of the National Assembly for the next five years. In these elections, as reported by Index.hr, there are no surprises because there are 470 candidates for 470 parliamentary seats, but the decisive factor will be the turnout, which has been decreasing in recent years.

Eight million voters are called to elect 470 candidates of which 263 are women and 207 are men, mostly members of the Cuban Communist Party (the only party in the country) for 470 seats in the Assembly.

Polling stations close at 18:XNUMX p.m. (midnight CET), and voting is optional.

Voters can circle one or more candidates in the electoral unit or circle "all candidates" on the list, which means they vote for all 470 proposed names.

Half of the candidates are appointed by the current deputies, and the rest by the municipal councils. Among the candidates are President Miguel Diaz-Canel (62) and former President Raul Castro (91).

Otherwise, the elections are being held at a time when Cuba is going through the most severe economic crisis in the past more than 30 years, with galloping inflation and an unprecedented migration wave, which was affected by the pandemic, the tightening of the American embargo and the structural weaknesses of the domestic economy.