By Frances Kerry

HAVANA, Oct 20

- A reported 97.59 percent of eligible voters, or virtually every Cuban over the age of 16, voted in local elections in what authorities called a clear show of support for Cuba's one-party communist system.
Announcing the results of Sunday's polling for delegates to municipal assemblies, Justice Minister Roberto Diaz Sotolongo said on Monday the turnout was slightly higher than the 97.1 percent for local voting in July 1995.

The total of blank or spoiled ballots was 7.21 percent, down from 11.3 percent in 1995. Added to this were 3,572 ballots, out of a total of 7.75 million, that were picked up at polling stations but never handed back.
``This result shows the support of the people for the political system,'' Sotolongo, who is also president of the national election commission, told a news conference.
He added that the very high turnout -- only 192,017 eligible voters did not go to the polls -- reflected the ``democratic essence'' of the system.

President Fidel Castro, casting his vote on Sunday, defended the system as more democratic than Western models. The Cuban leader said elections in countries like the United States were characterized by a high number of abstentions and an atmosphere of big business and warlike competition.

As usual, the voter figures from the city of Havana were slightly less overwhelming than from the rest of the country, although they were still very high.
In the capital, 95.85 percent of eligible voters turned out, and 9.82 percent of ballots were blank or spoiled.
Sotolongo, asked if the spoiled and blank votes represented a protest against the political system, said this was not necessarily the case. He suggested that people might have entered polling stations but found no candidates to their liking.
Sotolongo said there was no ``pressure or coercion'' on citizens to vote, adding that voting was a right of each citizen and one that each person decided on personally. In fact, authorities present voting as a patriotic duty.As the voting day progresses, members of the neighborhood Committees for the Defense of the Revolution tap on the doors of people who have not yet turned up at the local polling station, reminding them to vote.

Authorities make much of the fact that unlike in multiparty systems, where political parties select their candidates, it is the people themselves who hold pre-election meetings to select the candidates for municipal assemblies.
But Sotolongo said 82 percent of the more than 30,000 candidates for 14,533 posts were either members of the Communist Party or the Union of Young Communists. This, he said, showed that citizens supported party militants.
The delegates elected to the municipal assemblies serve as a channel for complaints about local services such as the water supply but often have little power to do much about the problems.
A second round of voting will be held on Sunday to elect 1,098 delegates. This round is necessary in places where no single candidate had more than 50 percent of the vote.
Voting for provincial assemblies and the National Assembly is expected to take place early next year. Sotolongo said these elections would be called in the coming days

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