More than 97 percent of Cuba’s 8 million registered voters turned out for Cuba’s parliamentary elections. All 609 candidates for parliament, as well as all 1,119 candidates for 14 provincial bodies, ran uncontested. The total turnout was down from 98 percent of registered voters who cast ballots five years ago.

Political dissidents protested, calling the process a farce and encouraging voters to leave their ballots blank. The efforts gave little results, as only 3 percent of ballots were deposited blank and less than 1 percent were spoiled.

Commenting on the election, President Fidel Castro said, “We are perfecting our revolutionary and socialist democracy.” Castro claims Cuba’s elections are more democratic than other nations because candidates do not spend heavily on campaigning.

These statements carry no worth other than their humorous content. While active participation in voting is an important part of a stable democracy, and low campaign spending is an ideal many Americans favor, Cuba lacks one of the most pivotal aspects of a democracy: competition.

When nearly 2,000 political candidates in an election run unopposed, it tends to signify a system only has one political body from which to choose. While a high voter turnout and nearly unanimous results could mean overwhelming support for a political party, it usually means voters are coerced through either physical threat or social embarrassment to cast their ballot for a party.

The Cubans have a great deal going for them: They have one of the highest literacy rates in the Caribbean and even the world, and their low patient/doctor ratio is the envy of much of the Americas. And in response, it seems, Cuban voters come out in swarms to display their gratefulness.

But the dissidents are correct — the system is a farce. Cuba needs to stop pretending to be a “revolutionary and socialist democracy,” or any type of democracy, for that matter. Communism is communism, and no amount of voting can cover up all the principles it stands for. Their democracy is a fake until competition is allowed.

But until then, if the voters are so much in favor of the Communist Party, Cuba should automatically appoint to office the same candidates everyone would have voted for in the first place. While voters may act proud to be a part of the “democratic process,” the ballots they wave in the air are merely empty symbols of how little freedom and power of change they truly possess.