By Pascal Fletcher
HAVANA, Jan 11 (Reuters) - Cuba's President Fidel Castro, hailing a big turnout of voters in one-party general elections on Sunday, said his country was not changing but was reaffirming its socialist identity in a predominantly capitalist world.
"It's the world that's changing, not Cuba,'' the 71-year-old Cuban leader told Cuban and foreign reporters after casting his vote in the eastern province of Santiago de Cuba.
The scheduled elections were presented by Castro's Communist Party government as a show of support and national unity just 10 days before a landmark visit to the Caribbean island by Pope John Paul.
Three hours before polling stations were due to close, election officials were already reporting that more than 7.6 million of the island's 7.8 million voters (Eds: correct) had cast their ballots in the elections, which offered no choice of candidates and no alternatives to the ruling Communist Party.
Electors were simply asked to endorse two official lists, one of 601 candidates for a National Assembly and another of 1,192 candidates for provincial assemblies. Detailed official poll results were expected to be released on Monday.
After voting in Santiago de Cuba province, where he is standing for reelection for one of the National Assembly seats, Castro told reporters the capitalist world was "in crisis.'' He cited the economic problems affecting Far Eastern states and their repercussions in international stock markets.
"Cuba is not changing. On the contrary, it is reaffirming its position, its ideals, its objectives,'' Castro said.
He was speaking at El Cobre just outside Santiago de Cuba city, within sight of the Sierra Maestra mountains where he launched the 1959 Cuban Revolution that brought him to power.
"This is a solid Revolution,'' he said, referring to the reports of a high turnout.
Earlier, in a short speech to the crowd outside El Cobre polling station, he praised what he called the "effort and enthusiasm'' shown in the electoral process.
This, he said, revealed the force of Cuba's one-party socialist system in the face of its enemies, especially the United States, which maintains a longstanding economic embargo against the island.
"Nothing can defeat us, not even death,'' Castro said.
No known opponents of Castro or the government were among the candidates, who were proposed by special candidacy commissions formed by members of pro-government organizations representing farmers, students and other social groups.
But apparently worried about possible voter apathy, the island's communist rulers had staged an intense pre-election propaganda campaign calling for a big turnout.
Diplomats said they believed the government wanted to make the elections a show of national unity and patriotism ahead of the Pope's visit, which has rekindled speculation about the island's political system and its future.
Castro and other Cuban leaders contrasted the Cuban polls with elections held in other countries, which they said were characterized by fraud, violence, influence-peddling and high rates of abstention.
At similar one-party polls held in Cuba in 1993, the government announced a voter turnout of nearly 97.6 percent.
Voting is not obligatory but was being portrayed by the authorities as a patriotic and moral duty.
Creating a climate of psychological pressure, Cuba's state media kept up a barrage of propaganda in favor of the vote.
To reinforce this, Communist Party officials and members of neighborhood Committees for the Defense of the Revolution made house-to-house calls to persuade electors to turn out and vote for the official candidates. REUTERS
18:52 01-11-98