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Yahoo! Wed Jul 10, 7:28 PM ET
HAVANA (AP) - Cuba will hold elections within three months to choose
deputies to its National Assembly as well as provincial and municipal
representatives, President Fidel Castro said Wednesday.
The Cuban news agency Prensa Latina said the municipal elections were set
for Oct. 20. The date of balloting for National Assembly deputies and provincial
leaders will be announced later, the news agency said, citing a report on state
television.
Cuba's constitution calls for elections at the national and provincial level
every five years. The last parliamentary elections were in 1997.
It is doubtful the elections will bring significant change.
The Communist Party is the only legal political party in Cuba. The 500-seat
chamber almost always votes unanimously, as it did last month to change the
constitution to declare the country's socialist system "irrevocable."
Castro has been Cuba's unchallenged leader since 1959, first as premier and
then as president beginning in 1976.
President Bush has said that he will not ease restrictions on American
travel to or trade with Cuba until the country holds direct, multiparty
elections.
Castro contends that this communist island's electoral system is far more
democratic than that of the United States, where campaign spending plays a key
role in the process. | 
