It was an election to some extent I suppose we could say, but by the time the elections took place, almost all the opposition leaders had fled, so there was practically no competition.
There are a number of parties that we could describe almost as satellite parties to the ruling party. Some of them nominally put up candidates, but the real opposition parties had already left for the most part. There was an election in the literal sense. There was a process whereby people went to the polling stations, but in the context I described, you would probably agree that that wasn't terribly meaningful.