Cuba Holds Runoff Elections on Sunday

HAVANA TIMES — Runoff elections will take place this Sunday in those neighborhood voting districts where no candidate received more than 50 percent of the votes on Oct. 21.

The only exceptions will be in Holguin and Santiago de Cuba, still immersed in recovery efforts in the wake of Hurricane Sandy.

Cubans vote every two and a half years to elect a neighborhood representative called a delegate. Some of those are then chosen by area “mass organizations” to sit on their local city councils.

Every five years, as in this current general election year, voters will also be asked to vote on an approved slate of candidates for the provincial assemblies and the national parliament.

The only contested election is the one for neighborhood delegates, where there must be two to eight candidates nominated by the voters themselves at previous neighborhood meetings.