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An independent digital survey conducted by more than 20 Cuban media outlets revealed that 82.2% of the participants identified the lack of civil and political liberties as one of the main problems in Cuba, according to the final results published on encuesta-cuba.netlify.app after the consultation closed on May 1, 2026.
The initiative was launched on April 27 by independent media outlets such as elToque, CiberCuba, and El Estornudo, and concluded with 42,263 participants, of which 58% expressed their opinions from within the island, 42% from the diaspora, and 94 responses were excluded (0.22%).
Question 8 of the survey asked participants to identify up to three main problems in the country. Following the lack of civil and political liberties, which received 82.2%, 74.8% pointed to government inefficiency and stagnation, and 52.6% marked the economic crisis and scarcity of basic goods.
Institutional corruption was identified as the main problem by 47.8% of respondents, while mass emigration and the loss of human capital received 7.3%.
The most striking data that contrasts with the official discourse of the regime is that only 4.7% of the participants identified the U.S. embargo and external pressures as one of the main issues facing the country, a figure that dismantles the narrative that the dictatorship has maintained for decades to justify the failure of the model.
The other results of the survey further reinforce the picture of massive rejection of the system: 94% of respondents expressed being very dissatisfied with the current political system, 95% consider a political change to be extremely urgent, and 99% support the elimination of the Partido Comunista as the sole party.
The evaluation of Miguel Díaz-Canel averaged 1.11 out of five, with 93.7% of participants giving him the lowest possible rating.
"The respondents are overwhelmingly calling for a change of system in Cuba," declared José Jasán Nieves, director of elToque, in an interview with El Estornudo magazine.
The regime reacted by attacking the survey even before the results were known. Through official media such as Razones de Cuba, it questioned its representativeness, in a maneuver that analysts and independent journalists described as a sign of fear in light of the magnitude of citizen participation.
The authorities also blocked the survey URL on the same day it was launched, forcing many participants on the island to connect via VPN in order to respond. The independent journalist Mónica Baró defended the value of the results despite the methodological limitations inherent in a self-selection survey in a country without free access to the internet.
The exercise occurs in a context of sustained repression: following the protests of July 11, 2021, the number of political prisoners in Cuba exceeded 800, with sentences of up to 30 years. An international study classified Cuba as the second worst democracy in Latin America in 2022, scoring only 2.59 out of 10 and zero points in electoral process and pluralism.
The platform encuesta-cuba.netlify.app announced that it will soon publish the complete report with the final and disaggregated results.
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