A CiberCuba investigation | Second of four installments
The first installment of this research revealed that the independent Cuban civil society has not only contemplated the fate of a potential democratic Cuba but also the paths to reach it: referendum, negotiation, break, transition "from law to law," provisional government, constitutional process, and hybrid formulas.
The question that now arises is more specific: if any of those scenarios were to open a transition, what would need to be done for the State to continue functioning while the new order is being built.
CiberCuba has reviewed political proposals, legal projects, economic studies, and sectoral works created by organizations, think tanks, jurists, economists, and experts from independent civil society. The result is not a single program, but rather a broad set of responses to a significant number of the issues that may arise during a transition.
This is the second of four installments. The first examined the pathways to change; this one analyzes the proposals for governance and reconstruction; the third will address the gap between that knowledge and a political alternative capable of wielding power; and the fourth will study the existing international support and what would be needed for a Cuban transition.
The first problem: who holds the authority
A transition cannot be limited to declaring that the previous regime has ended. Someone must ensure the continuity of public services, security, the courts, and the administration during that period.
The Cuban American Bar Association (CABA) has been working on this issue for years. Its Fundamental Law of Transition of the Republic of Cuba proposes a legal framework for the period between the end of the current system and the establishment of a democratic government.
The project includes a transitional period of two years and regulates public authorities, the Judiciary, territorial defense, political reform, and transitional provisions.
One of its explicit objectives is to avoid the chaos that can result from a leadership vacuum. The proposal is to maintain the laws and institutions that do not conflict with democratic principles until the transition government can replace them.
In June 2026, CABA and organizations linked to the Agreement of Liberation resumed this work and began recruiting lawyers, judges, academics, and law students to prepare the regulations and institutions that may be needed in the event of a political change.
The project specifically covers the period between the end of the communist system and the first general elections.
A provisional government with specific functions
The Agreement of Liberation, signed in March by Pasos de Cambio and the Assembly of the Cuban Resistance along with more than 50 organizations, takes an additional step: it directly proposes a provisional transition government.
That government would have a limited mandate and should address the humanitarian emergency, restore basic services, guarantee fundamental rights, release political prisoners, and prepare free, fair, and multi-party elections.
The agreement divides the transition into three phases: Liberation; Stabilization and Reconstruction; and Democratization. For the first stage, it establishes specialized commissions for humanitarian emergencies, security and public order, economic recovery, social development and infrastructure, health, education, legislative affairs, justice, the Constitution, and the reunification of the exiles.
More than a sectoral program, the document seeks to address a functional question: who is responsible for what when current institutions cease to respond and there is still no elected Government.
Cuba Next: Institutions Before Improvisation
The proposal from Cuba Próxima is based on a different transition, focused on negotiation and verifiable agreements, but also gives significant attention to the institutional problem.
Its Agreed Opening proposes a Political Negotiation Table and, during the initial phases, measures for economic stabilization, food assistance, and medicine, an emergency energy plan, and legal guarantees for investment.
Ahead of upcoming elections, it proposes a provisional constitutional framework, laws of immediate necessity, a law to regulate the election of a Constitutional Assembly, and a constitutional transition law.
The document also refers to a file of specific proposals regarding elections, Constitution, constitutional process, legislative function, Judiciary, municipalities, companies, and commerce.
The proposal thus aims to prevent the transition from relying solely on temporary political agreements: it is also important to know which regulations and which institutions come into play at each stage.
Justice: What to Do with a Repressive Apparatus
Institutional reconstruction cannot be limited to changing laws.
Cubalex has warned that the fall or transformation of a regime does not automatically ensure democracy. A transition can lead to new forms of concentration of power if there are no guarantees from the very beginning.
Their proposal for 2026 sets the minimum baseline as the release of political prisoners, the decriminalization of dissent, judicial independence, due process, prohibition of torture, protection of vulnerable groups, transitional justice, reparation, and guarantees of non-repetition.
The organization also insists on an important distinction: political organizations may prepare programs for governance, but human rights entities must retain their ability to monitor and limit any government, even one that emerges from the opposition.
Transitional justice also appears in the work of the Centro de Estudios Convivencia, the CTDC, Programa Cuba, Estado de Sats, and other initiatives. There is no single formula regarding responsibilities, amnesties, truth, or reparations, but there is a well-developed conversation about how to prevent the transition from becoming vengeance or impunity.
The military and security problem
It is one of the areas where the proposals are less homogeneous.
The Release Agreement establishes a specific commission for security, defense, and public order, and advocates for the demilitarization of political power. CABA includes the defense of the territory within its transitional law.
Other projects and legal works address the subordination of the Armed Forces and security bodies to civilian authorities, but here the corpus is less precise than in constitutional or economic matters.
The issue is crucial: a transition needs to maintain public order while simultaneously preventing the coercive structures of the old regime from retaining the power to obstruct change.
Who is in charge, over whom, with what legal authority and under what mechanisms of civil control is one of the questions that still require further development.
Stabilize the economy before rebuilding it
The economic dimension is probably one of the most explored.
The Cuban American National Foundation (FNCA) proposes a roadmap of 13 pillars that includes private property, legal security, tax reform, banking, credit, business creation, investment, trade, infrastructure, education, health care, and social protection.
The proposal aims to create the institutional conditions for private capital to enter Cuba and for Cubans to also participate as owners.
The Cuba Transformación project, created in 2026 by renowned Cuban economists, proposes an explicit sequence of stabilization, recovery, and development. The document is presented as an open framework subject to revisions, rather than a closed program.
The Cuba Study Group has supported this effort with specific work on how to stop economic deterioration, how to define stabilization priorities, principles of transformation, and the relationship between a social market economy and a democratic rule of law.
And the Association for the Study of the Cuban Economy (ASCE) has set an agenda for research in 2026 that includes precisely economic stabilization, structural reform, infrastructure and energy, governance, security, and international investment.
There is no single economic recipe. However, there is a considerable amount of work on what should be stabilized first and how to transition to a functional economy.
Property, investment, and business creation
Here arises an issue that will likely become one of the major problems of any transition: how to shift from a state-dominated economy to one based on property rights without causing an unmanageable ownership conflict.
The FNCA's roadmap proposes to incentivize companies with Cuban capital participation and protect their minority shareholders.
Cuba Próxima aims to institutionalize the business and commercial sector and offers specific proposals regarding companies and trade.
The CEC has been working for years on property and economy, while the Cuba Study Group was already proposing microcredit programs and support for small entrepreneurs in 2006 as a way to generate domestic capital.
The issue of confiscated properties, state assets, and ownership claims is more complex and does not yet have a consensus solution. It is one of the problems that will likely require more legal engineering than any other aspect of the transition.
Electricity, water, infrastructure: keeping the country alive
The major roadmaps agree that reconstruction cannot wait for the consolidation of a new Constitution.
The Centro de Estudios Convivencia (CEC) has dedicated specific efforts to infrastructure. Its XVII Report proposes to establish priorities, diversify investment sources, attract foreign capital, promote extraordinary financing, and organize working groups between the Government, civil society, and the diaspora. It even suggests an extraordinary international investment comparable, in conceptual scale, to a "Marshall Plan."
In February, the conference «Cuba: The Day After Tomorrow» at Florida International University brought together more than 75 academics, specialists, activists, and students across 23 panels. One of its central sessions was titled precisely «From a Transition Roadmap to Reconstruction» and addressed constitutional transition, transitional justice, and reconstruction.
In July, the American Museum of the Cuban Diaspora also hosted the “Initiative for a Democratic and Economic Alternative for Cuba,” a forum dedicated specifically to infrastructure reconstruction. Experts from FIU, the University of Miami, and the Energy Institute of the University of Texas, among others, participated, and topics such as transportation, tourism, water, and sewage were discussed.
Here appears an important evolution: the reflection begins to shift from "we need to rebuild" to how much it costs, which sectors are priorities, who can do it, and how long it would take.
Health, education, and social protection
Reconstruction is not only conceived as economic liberalization.
The CEC has specific proposals regarding education and health, as well as reports on aging, social inclusion, and governance. Its catalog includes work ranging from economics, agriculture, and legal frameworks to media, governance, and elder care.
The FNCA proposes voucher systems for education and healthcare, combining public funding with a variety of providers.
State of Sats already included education, health, pensions, and social security in its 2018 transition program.
Programa Cuba has also gathered proposals from specialists on education, pensions, aging, and other components of social welfare.
The common goal is not simply to dismantle the state system, but to address a more urgent question: how to ensure essential services during a period when the State will be under extraordinary pressure.
Governance: the piece that connects all the others
Probably the corpus of the Centro de Estudios Convivencia (CEC) is the one that most explicitly seeks to unite the different functions of the State.
His thought itinerary includes a report specifically about "Governability and Governance in the Future of Cuba," as well as others on economy, legal framework, health, education, agriculture, media, security, international relations, and diaspora.
The center is precisely defined as a laboratory of thought, strategic foresight, and proposals for a democracy with good governance.
That perspective is important because a transition cannot be sustained solely by having the right Constitution.
Needs capable administrations, officials, budgets, information, functional municipalities, control systems, clear rules, and a civil society with the ability to oversee the Government.
That's where the question shifts from being solely political to becoming administrative.
The diaspora as a capacity for reconstruction
Practically all recent economic proposals assign some role to Cubans living abroad.
The FNCA invests directly in capital, knowledge, and companies. CEC has developed specific proposals regarding the contributions of the diaspora to national reconstruction.
Cuba Próxima considers the participation of the diaspora within its institutional design. Cuba11J raised the rights of participation for Cubans residing outside the island.
The infrastructure reconstruction efforts of Convivencia explicitly propose to call on the diaspora to participate in working groups, investment conferences, and projects financed by their companies.
The diaspora thus emerges not only as a source of remittances or investment but also as a reserve of human, business, technical, and professional capital.
How far does this preparation go?
The balance of the corpus is uneven.
In legal framework, rights, economy, and sectoral reconstruction, there is a substantial body of work, accumulated over the years and significantly expanded in 2026.
In infrastructure, technical calculations and funding proposals are even emerging. In provisional government, there are concrete designs, especially in CABA, Cuba Próxima, and the Liberation Agreement.
In transitional justice, there is a developed discussion, although not a complete consensus. In health, education, agriculture, aging, and social protection, there is a wide range of sectoral proposals.
Where the landscape is clearly less developed is in the last operational mile: who makes the decisions, who controls the security structures, how the different authorities coordinate, how disputes among political actors are resolved, how property is protected during transit, and who manages the large emergency funds.
It's an important difference.
Having a plan to reconstruct the electrical system does not equate to having an authority capable of contracting, financing, and supervising the reconstruction of the electrical system.
A country with proposals, but still without an alternative system of government
The review of this second set of documents leads to a conclusion similar to that of the first submission, albeit at a different level.
Cuba does not start from scratch regarding what needs to be done.
There are proposals to preserve institutional continuity, create a provisional government, release prisoners, guarantee rights, reorganize the judiciary, stabilize the economy, attract investment, rebuild infrastructure, restore energy, reorganize health and education, and call for elections.
Some are compatible with each other; others reflect different political and economic models. But the problem begins precisely where the paper ends.
Who turns those proposals into decisions?
Who makes up the provisional government? Who has the authority to execute its decisions? Who selects the heads of each area? Who keeps the security forces under civilian control? Who manages the funds allocated for reconstruction? Who speaks on behalf of the transition to the United States, Europe, and financial organizations?
There lies the boundary between having knowledge of how to govern a transition and being truly prepared to govern it.
The third installment of this research will specifically address this gap: what is needed to transform the body of proposals, experts, and existing capabilities into a recognizable, legitimate, and operational political alternative.
One of the central questions will also be who could provide the necessary resources to make the leap from thought and documents to actual governance capacity.
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