Official results from Cuba's recent parliamentary elections show that interim President Raul Castro has won more votes that his ailing older brother, Fidel Castro, in uncontested polling for the legislature known as the National Assembly.
The government Wednesday released results showing that the 76-year-old Raul Castro received 99.4 percent of the ballots cast in the family's base of Santiago in eastern Cuba. It was the highest percentage in the country.
Fidel Castro - who has not appeared in public since undergoing intestinal surgery in July 2006 - received 98.2 percent of the vote in the one-party communist state.
Both brothers were among 614 unopposed candidates for the National Assembly. The body convenes February 24 to name lawmakers to Cuba's supreme governing body, the Council of State, which chooses the president.
Despite his illness, Fidel Castro currently remains head of the Council of State.
The 81-year-old Castro, however, said in a letter read last month on national television that he does not want to stay in power forever, suggesting he may retire from the Cuban leadership.
Mr. Castro said his duty is not to hold on to positions or block the path of younger people, but to share the experiences and ideas from his life. The Cuban leader seized power in a 1959 revolution.
Some information for this report was provided by AFP, AP and Reuters.