Dissidents on the Ballot in Historic Cuba Vote

Cubans are voting in local elections Sunday featuring two opposition candidates, who, if they win, would become the island's first non-Communist elected officials in decades.

Dissidents Hildebrando Chaviano, a 65-year old lawyer, and Yuniel Lopez, a 26-year old computer scientist, already have made history by surviving a first round of balloting and making it to the final vote.

Chaviano and Lopez would be the first officials elected from outside the Communist Party since Cuba's electoral law was put in place under former president Fidel Castro in 1976.

Election victory for the two men would be a sign that the once all-powerful Communist Party is loosening its grip somewhat, as it prepares for normalized ties with the United States and greater trade and travel links to the outside world.

Chaviano said the two opposition candidates may have caught the government by surprise.

"We simply slipped through a loophole," Chaviano explained.

More than eight million Cubans of voting age are being called on Sunday to elect 12,589 municipal officials out of some 30,000 candidates.

The National Electoral Commission billed the vote as an act of "genuine democracy" that lets Cubans build a more just society without interference as polls opened Sunday morning.

A Cuban state council official said the elections showed the country's commitment to its revolution and noted that they coincide with the anniversary of the failed U.S. invasion of the Bay of Pigs in 1961.

The elections come as Cuba is in talks to renew ties with the U.S. and European governments. 

Washington and Havana in December announced plans to set aside decades of hostility.