The 81-year-old Castro handed over authority to his younger brother Raul in July 2006 after announcing he suffered from a gastrointestinal illness, though he still maintains his title as head of state.
In a recent poll of Cubans, 74 percent said they wanted to vote for a new leader to replace Castro, said the U.S.-funded International Republican Institute, which conducted the poll without telling those Cubans asked that their answers were being tabulated.
http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/Top_News/2007/11/21/cuba_to_have_historic_election/7488/
Note: http://www.upi.com/News...

There's no such thing as "free and fair" elections anywhere, there's only degrees of freeness and fairness, with some elections worse than others.