2003 Cuban parliamentary election

none Cuba parliamentary 1998 Cuban parliamentary election 1998 2008 Cuban parliamentary election 2008 All 609 seats in the National Assembly of People's Power 305 19 January 2003 8,313,770 97.64% ( 0.71pp) Fidel Castro5 cropped.JPG Fidel Castro Communist Party of Cuba 609 7,128,860 91.35% 8 Cuban parliamentary election, 2003 - Results.svg Results by province(Shaded by percentage of voters who cast votes for the entire list of candidates, as opposed to selective votes.) President of the Council of Ministers Fidel Castro Communist Party of Cuba Fidel Castro Communist Party of Cuba Legislative elections were held for the National Assembly of People's Power, Cuba's national legislature, on 19 January 2003. The vote is an endorsement of pre-selected candidates rather than a choice between rivals. Half of the candidates are nominated at public meetings before gaining approval from electoral committees, while the other half are nominated by official mass organisations (such as trade unions, farmers organisations and students' unions). The government claims that the election represents a show of popular support, but its critics have attributed the result instead to fear or apathy on the part of those who do not support the government. They suspect that the result may reflect electoral engineering (in constituencies known to have a high proportion of voters who are more inclined to express dissatisfaction by registering blank or spoiled votes, the candidates offered tend to be highly respected local figures not associated closely with the government), the lack of independent supervision of the count or the barrage of propaganda. They also point out that the system of selection of candidates effectively excludes any truly independent voices.Elections and Events 1991-2001 https://web.archive.org/web/20120722023013/http://libraries.ucsd.edu/locations/sshl/resources/featured-collections/latin-american-elections-statistics/cuba/elections-and-events-19912001.html 2012-07-22 UCSD Libraries In the run-up to the election, U.S. President George W. Bush described the process as "a fraud and a sham" adding "If Cuba's government takes all the necessary steps to ensure that the 2003 elections are certifiably free and fair, and if Cuba also begins to adopt meaningful market-based reforms, then, and only then, will I work with the United States Congress to ease the ban on trade and travel".Bush insists on free elections before lifting Cuba trade embargo The Telegraph, 21 May 2002 Results File:Cuba National Assembly of People's Power 2003.svg Communist Party of Cuba and affiliated (entire list) 7128860 609 2 Communist Party of Cuba and affiliated (selective votes) 675038 313253 8313770 Granma Results of notable candidates CandidateNotes%Fidel CastroPresident, Communist Party leader, and original Granma revolutionary99.01%Raúl CastroVice-president, Defence minister, Fidel's Brother, and original Granma revolutionary99.75%Juan Miguel GonzálezFather of Elián González93.34%José RubieraMeteorologist, and head of Cuba's hurricane defence system96.71%Silvio Rodríguez DomínguezPopular musician, singer and poet94.71%Eva Esther Ribalta CastilloCandidate with lowest approval vote percentage85.15%Average of all candidatesAverage of approval vote percentage94.83% See also Cuba Cuba and democracy References External links es 2003 national and state elections Category:Parliamentary elections in Cuba Parliamentary Cuba Category:Single-candidate elections Cuba