[:es]Polls Open for 8 Million Cubans[:]

[:es]Havana, Nov 26.- Over 24,300 polling stations opened Sunday in Cuba for 8 million Cubans to elect their delegates to Municipal Assemblies as part of a key electoral process for the nation which will wind up with the election of a new president on February 24 next year.

In this first stage of the 2017-2018 general elections, 12,515 delegates will be elected from a similar number of constituencies to 168 Municipal Assemblies across the island.

A run-off vote is slated for December 3 in constituencies where none of the candidates got 50 percent of valid ballots.

The second polling to choose -for a five year term- the delegates for Provincial Assemblies and the National Parliament will be later announced by the electoral authorities.

After casting his vote, Cuba’s Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez said he wished U.S. citizens could have ‘an election day like we are having in Cuba, watch it first hand, make up their own opinion of our democratic system.’

This electoral process draws the attention of many around the world, ‘more than it usually does, and we are happy of being exercising the right to vote in this turbulent and growingly complex world where expressing truly free is increasingly difficult,’ he stressed. Rodriguez recalled that Washington has intensified the economic, commercial and financial blockade imposed by the United States for over half a century and maintains the prohibition of US citizens to travel to Cuba.

This electoral process in Cuba will lead to the election by the National Parliament on February 24 of the country’s new president. (PL) [:]