More young candidates for deputies. Image: PL

Havana, Feb 15 (RHC) The presence of young people among the candidates for deputies to the Cuban National Assembly of People's Power (parliament) is growing by almost 7% compared to the previous legislature, ahead of the March elections.

According to figures released by the National Nominations Commission, 94 young people between 18 and 35 years appear in the list of proposals to be submitted to the scrutiny on March 26, which represents 20% of the 470 parliamentarians who will make up the new Assembly.

This figure exceeds by 6.8 percentage points the number of young people in the IX Legislature, currently in office, in which 80 deputies were in that age range.

If the current candidacy is approved, the average age of the main Cuban legislative body will be 46, three years younger than that of the current parliament.

According to data from the international portal Parline, in 2023, in the region of the Americas, deputies under 30 years of age represented 3% of the total number of sitting parliamentarians, while in the world it was 2.63%.

The presence of young people in the proposals responds to one of the principles of the political system: guaranteeing the representation of all sectors.

The island's electoral law allows student and youth organizations to participate in the formation of the lists of deputies, which propose their representatives and also make up the nominating committees at different levels.

That legal norm, recently updated based on the new Constitution of 2019, establishes that citizens may exercise their right to vote when they reach 16 years of age, and with 18 they may hold public office. (Source: PL)