HAVANA, April 20 (UPI) -- Two opposition candidates, have conceded defeat in Cuban elections, for the first time in decades in the country's current single party electoral system.
Hildebrando Chaviano, a journalist and lawyer, and Yuniel Lopez, a member of the Independent and Democratic Cuba Party, an outlawed political party, were running for seats in Havana for municipal assemblies that oversee matters including water supplies and street repairs. They conceded after stating they both had too little votes for a chance of victory.
The candidates were selected by a show of hands at a local neighborhood meeting. There is no campaigning in the final round of voting, which is secret.
"We have to take advantage of the moment," Chaviano said after his selection as candidate, before conceding defeat. "No-one from the government was expecting us to be nominated and even less that we would become candidates."
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"Some people say that there is fear in Cuba, and I say that people have lost their fear," Lopez previously said.
Granma, the official newspaper of the Central Committee of the Cuban Communist Party, reported that 7,272,747 people out of the 8,536,670 eligible voters cast ballots by Sunday at 5 p.m. -- a voter participation rate of about 85 percent.
Fidel Castro voted in the election. A representative from the electoral committee delivered his vote in an envelope, according to Granma.
"The Commander in Chief Fidel Castro Ruz, exercised his right to vote as part of the midterm elections taking place throughout Cuba to elect delegates to the municipal assemblies of People's Power, the same day that commemorates 54 years of the defeat of imperialism in the sands of Playa Girón [Bay of Pigs]."
Municipal assemblies nominate candidates for half of the representatives on provincial assemblies, which nominate candidates for half of the members of the National Assembly.
The National Assembly elects Cuba's ruling Council of State, which then elects the president of the country.
