Ailing Cuban revolutionary leader Fidel Castro voted in Sunday's parliamentary elections, appearing in public for the first time in several months.
Frail and stooped, Fidel Castro who ruled the Caribbean island nation for nearly half-a-century voted at a polling station in the Vedado neighborhood of capital Havana.
Cuban state television showed the 86-year-old communist diehard casting the ballot at the polling center where he is said to have been voting since 1976. Castro had not voted in public in Cuba's last two general elections.
Wearing a light blue jacket over a blue plaid shirt, he reportedly spent up to an hour chatting in a faint voice to other voters and reporters despite looking weak. He spoke of efforts to reform the economy, Latin American integration and Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, who is currently in Havana convalescing after a fourth round of cancer surgery.
A cheering crowd surrounded the car carrying Fidel Castro, who once fought as the champion of communist campaign against American capitalism, before being driven off.
"I am sure that the people (Cuban) are a revolutionary people that have made great sacrifices," he told media persons who gathered around the iconic revolutionary whom they have been missing for nearly an year. "Fifty years of the blockade and they haven't given in," he said referring to the U.S. economic embargo on Cuba.
The last time Fidel Castro was seen live on television was when Pope Benedict XVI visited the communist country in March 2012.
After being Prime Minister from 1959 to 1976, and President from 1976 to 2008, Fidel Castro announced his retirement paving the way for his brother Raul Castro to take over as President in 2008 February. Fidel Castro has not been active in Cuba's public life since then due to ill-health.
In January last year, he forecast an unsuccessful Republican challenge to Obama seeking re-election saying that Americans have a pathetic pool of options if faced with a choice between Obama, a top-tier Republican rival or a robot, and "90 percent of voting Americans, especially Hispanics, blacks and the growing number of the impoverished middle class, would vote for the robot."
Irrespective of his poor health, Fidel Castro is a candidate to the National Assembly.
Elections were held to the National and Provincial Assemblies, and Cubans aged over 16 years were eligible to vote.
All candidates for 612 Deputies and more than 1,000 Provincial Delegates were selected by the ruling Communist Party, which does not allow any opposition parties to take part in Cuba's elections.
Cuba's Cabinet is elected by National Assembly Deputies, who are expected to re-elect Raul Castro as President when the inaugural session of the new House is held later this month.
The United States does not have full diplomatic relations with Cuba, and still maintains a nearly half-a-century-old economic embargo on its smaller neighbor. The Caribbean nation remains on the list of countries designated by the U.S. as "terrorism sponsor."
However, signs of change began to surface when Raul Castro assumed power. Raul said Havana was prepared to discuss anything Washington wanted, including human rights and political prisoners.
After 50 years of icy relations, the two countries resumed in 2009 direct talks on migration and on re-establishing direct mail service.
Raul has pressed for economic reforms aimed at upgrading Cuba's state-dominated economy, which relies heavily on the leftist government of oil-rich Venezuela for support. He has encouraged private investment in agriculture and retail services.
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