Fidel Castro votes in Cuba's general election

PanARMENIAN.Net - Retired Cuban leader Fidel Castro voted in Cuba's general election on Sunday, Feb 3, and chatted with well wishers and Cuban reporters in Havana for more than an hour, in his first extended public appearance since 2010, Reuters reported.

Castro had voted from his home in three previous elections since taking ill in 2006 and ceding power to his brother Raul two years later.

Castro, 86, was seen on state-run television as he cast his ballot in the late afternoon.

The announcer said Castro talked about efforts to reform the economy, Latin American integration, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and other matters.

"The people are truly revolutionary, they have really sacrificed. We don't have to prove it, history will. Fifty years of the blockade and they haven't given in," he said.

Cubans went to the polls to elect a Communist Party-selected slate of 612 deputies to the National Assembly and more than 1,000 delegates to provincial assemblies.

President Raul Castro and other leaders were also shown on television casting their ballots and commenting on the importance of the election as a show of support for reforms and independence from the United States.