The initial partial results of a public opinion poll of unprecedented scope about the political and social reality of Cuba reveal that 75.1% of the participants believe the island should transition to a model of capitalist liberal democracy and market economy.
The survey was launched this Friday by a coalition of over 20 independent digital Cuban media outlets and is available at encuestascuba.net until May 1st.
The data is conclusive: this is not a simple majority, but an overwhelming inclination towards a break with the current system. 16.5% prefer a mixed system that combines socialist and capitalist elements, reflecting a moderate change perspective.
Support for socialism is virtually negligible: only 1.9% believe in reforming the current model and a symbolic 0.1% want to maintain it as is.
Only 4.5% choose a capitalist model but without political pluralism, meaning with a strong government and without multiparty systems.
Overall, more than 91% of respondents —including those who support market democracy and those who prefer a mixed system— endorse some form of deep structural change.
The data on satisfaction with the government system reinforces this picture with equal clarity. 92% of participants express great dissatisfaction —level one on a scale from one to five— with the current government system in Cuba.
If we combine the low levels of satisfaction, 96% express dissatisfaction to some degree, while only 2% show any level of agreement with the current system.
"The population not only desires a different model, but is also deeply dissatisfied with the current system. This outlines a very clear scenario: high social pressure for profound structural change, not superficial reforms," highlights the analysis of the preliminary results.
The survey, anonymous and with technical safeguards against duplicate responses, consists of 32 questions divided into seven sections that cover everything from the respondent's profile to their stance on political figures, the role of Cuban emigration, and the role of the United States.
The results of 2026 confirm and deepen a trend documented by CubaData, an independent polling organization that has been operating since 2018 and has reached samples of more than 10,000 residents on the island.
In May 2024, only 3% of Cubans firmly identified as socialist and 85.9% wanted a shift towards a more open model.
The new collective survey represents a qualitative leap in the scale of dissemination by bringing together more than 20 independent media outlets for the first time around the same instrument designed with explicit political neutrality, and it will be active until May 1, 2026.
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