Cuba Municipal Election Results Dates Voting Live 2017 Candidates Opinion

Cuba Municipal Election Results Dates Voting Live 2017

Cuba postpones municipal elections

The Council of State moved the Oct. 22 election day to Nov. 26. 

• Cuba's Communist Party, the only legal political party on the island, announced they were delaying the municipal elections. 
• Cuba is postponing municipal elections by a month to Nov. 26 because of the devastation wrought on the Caribbean island by Hurricane Irma, its Council of State said in an electoral notice published in the ruling Granma Party newspaper on Tuesday.
• The elections were coming at an already difficult time for Cuba as an economic reform program appears stalled, aid from key ally Venezuela shrinks, and the Trump administration threatens.
• Then Irma swept across the island from east to west, tearing off roofs, damaging the power grid and crops, ripping up trees and bringing a violent storm surge to many coastal towns.
• The Council of State said it was delaying the municipal vote, originally slated for Oct. 22, so Cubans could focus their efforts on the recovery.

It was not clear if this would result in the delay of provincial and national elections, which are set to culminate in the transfer of power next year from Raul Castro to a new president.

Castro, younger brother, and successor to Fidel Castro, who died in November, will nonetheless retain a grip on power as head of the Communist Party, the only legal party in Cuba.

Municipal elections in Cuba 

The election of municipal assembly delegates involves nomination by voters in nomination assemblies, compilation of posting of candidate biographies, voting by secret ballot, and recall.Municipal assemblies are elected every two and a half years. Municipal elections are officially non-partisan.

Nomination assemblies are held about a month before the election in areas within the electoral districts. During regular elections, from 70% to over 90% of the electorate attend the nomination assemblies.Municipal candidates must be at least 16 years old.

In elections held on 21 October 2007, turnout was reported to be 8.1 million voters, approximately 95% of the population eligible to vote, which was less than the last such election on April 17, 2005, where voter turnout was 97%.Elections were then held in 2010 and 2013.