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92% of participants in a collective survey on political and social perspectives in Cuba report being very dissatisfied with the current system of government, and 96% express some level of dissatisfaction, according to the partial results published on the online data panel of the consultation.
The survey, launched on April 23 by a coalition of over 20 independent Cuban digital media outlets —including El Toque and Rialta— is open and its results are partial: it had accumulated over 12,100 responses in its first 48 hours. Since it is a non-probabilistic consultation with self-selection bias, the data should be interpreted as a snapshot of the moment, not as a representative sample.
The numbers regarding the influence of citizens on government decisions are equally shocking. The question about general trust in the government yields an average of 1.09 out of 5, with 94% of respondents marking the absolute minimum: no trust whatsoever. Only 33 individuals out of more than 4,300 express total confidence.
That rejection is widespread. Among the diaspora, 97.7% indicates the lowest level of trust; within Cuba, it stands at 92.2%. Even state workers—the group structurally closest to the regime—do not break the pattern: their average is 1.19 out of 5.
Miguel Díaz-Canel receives the lowest individual rating among the eight government figures evaluated: an average of 1.11 out of 5. A total of 93.7% assign him the minimum score, and when combining scores of 1 and 2, the rejection reaches 97.1%. Only 1.2% give him ratings of four or five. The figure with the best relative rating is Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez, with an average of 1.62 and 11.1% giving him high scores, though he also records the highest rate of "no response" (24.2%).
In the open-ended question about government figures with favorable performance, 63.4% of respondents wrote only "none," "no one is trustworthy," or "everyone is corrupt." Some respondents were more explicit: "Anyone linked to the upper echelons of this government offers no confidence for the future," wrote one of them.
The data on preferences for a political model is equally compelling. The 75.1% of respondents support the transition to a liberal democracy with a market economy, while over 91% back some form of deep structural change. Support for socialism is marginal: only 1.9% believe in reforming the current model, and a symbolic 0.1% wish to maintain it as it is.
The survey, available at encuestascuba.net until May 1, consists of 32 questions across seven sections, is anonymous, and has technical safeguards against duplicate responses. Its results are updated in real-time and are broken down by province, age, education level, and political opinion.
This survey confirms and deepens a trend that has already been documented: in May 2024, only 3% of Cubans identified as firmly socialist and 85.9% desired a shift towards a more open model, according to CubaData. The new survey is conducted in the context of the most profound crisis Cuba has experienced since 1959, with a 23% decline in GDP since 2019 and power outages lasting up to 20 hours a day.
"The population not only wants a different model, but is also deeply dissatisfied with the current system. This outlines a very clear scenario: high social pressure for a profound structural change, not superficial reforms," concludes the analysis of the partial survey results.
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