An investigation by CiberCuba | Second of four parts
The first installment of this research indicated that the independent civil society in Cuba has contemplated not only the fate of a potential democratic Cuba but also the paths to get there: plebiscite, negotiation, rupture, "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 to ensure that the State continues to function while the new order is being built.
CiberCuba has reviewed political proposals, legal projects, economic studies, and sectoral works developed by organizations, think tanks, legal experts, economists, and specialists from independent civil society. The result is not a single program but rather a fairly broad set of responses to many 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 exercising power; and the fourth will study the existing international support and what would be required for a Cuban transition.
The first problem: who exercises 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 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 prevent the chaos that can arise from a leadership vacuum. The aim is to maintain the laws and institutions that do not conflict with democratic principles until the transitional government can replace them.
In June 2026, CABA and organizations linked to the Release Agreement reintroduced this work and began recruiting lawyers, judges, academics, and law students to prepare the norms 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 Release Agreement, 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 transitional 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 for free, fair, and multiparty 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 emergency, security and public order, economic recovery, social development and infrastructure, health, education, legislative affairs, justice, the Constitution, and the reunification of the exile.
More than a sectorial program, the document aims to address an operational question: who is responsible for what when current institutions cease to function 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 it also dedicates significant attention to the institutional problem.
Its Agreed Opening proposes a Political Negotiation Table and, during the initial phases, economic stabilization measures, food aid and medicine, an energy emergency plan, and legal guarantees for investment.
In the lead-up to upcoming elections, he proposes a provisional constitutional framework, urgent necessity laws, a law to regulate the election of a Constituent Assembly, and a constitutional transition law.
The document also refers to a file of specific proposals regarding elections, Constitution, constituent process, legislative function, Judiciary, municipalities, businesses, and trade.
The proposal aims to prevent the transition from relying solely on temporary political agreements: it is also necessary to understand which rules and 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 guarantee 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 outlines as a minimum requirement the release of political prisoners, the decriminalization of dissent, judicial independence, due process, prohibition of torture, protection of vulnerable groups, transitional justice, reparations, and guarantees of non-repetition.
The organization also emphasizes an important distinction: political organizations may prepare programs for governance, but human rights entities must maintain their capacity to monitor and restrict any Government, even one that arises 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 reparation, but there is a well-developed conversation about how to prevent the transition from turning into revenge or impunity.
The military and security problem
It is one of the areas where the proposals are less homogeneous.
The Release Agreement dedicates a specific commission to security, defense, and public order and proposes the demilitarization of political power. CABA incorporates the defense of the territory within its transitional law.
Other projects and legal work address the subordination of the Armed Forces and security bodies to civil authorities, but here the corpus is less precise than in constitutional or economic matters.
The issue is critical: a transition must maintain public order while simultaneously preventing the coercive structures of the old regime from retaining the ability to obstruct change.
Who governs, over whom, with what legal authority and under what mechanisms of civil control is one of the questions that still require further exploration.
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, healthcare, 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 project Cuba Transformación, created in 2026 by renowned Cuban economists, proposes a clear sequence of stabilization, recovery, and development. The document is presented as an open framework that is subject to revisions, rather than a closed program.
The Cuba Study Group has supported this effort with specific work on how to halt economic deterioration, how to define stabilization priorities, the 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 a research agenda for 2026 that precisely includes 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 a question that will likely become one of the major issues of any transition: how to shift from a state-dominated economy to one based on property rights without triggering an unmanageable ownership conflict.
The FNCA's roadmap proposes to encourage companies with Cuban capital participation and to 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 had already proposed microcredit programs and support for small entrepreneurs in 2006 as a way to generate domestic capital.
The issue of confiscated properties, state assets, and property 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 chapter 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 Convivencia Studies Center (CEC) has dedicated specific efforts to infrastructure. Its XVII Report proposes establishing priorities, diversifying investment sources, attracting foreign capital, promoting extraordinary financing, and organizing working tables among 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 over 75 scholars, 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, discussing transportation, tourism, water, and sewage systems.
Here, an important evolution appears: the reflection starts to shift from "it is necessary to rebuild" to how much it costs, which sectors are a priority, who can do it, and how long it would take.
Health, education, and social protection
Reconstruction is not solely 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 works that span 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.
Estado de Sats already included education, health, pensions, and social security in its 2018 transition program.
Cuba Program has also gathered proposals from specialists on education, pensions, aging, and other components of social welfare.
The common goal is not merely to dismantle the state system, but to address a more pressing 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 attempts to unite the various functions of the State.
His thought itinerary includes a specific report on "Governance and Governance in the Future of Cuba" and others covering 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, functioning municipalities, control systems, clear rules, and a civil society with the ability to monitor the Government.
That's where the question shifts from being exclusively political to becoming administrative.
The diaspora as a capacity for reconstruction
Almost all recent economic proposals assign some role to Cubans living abroad.
The FNCA directly invests in capital, knowledge, and businesses. CEC has developed specific proposals regarding the contribution of the diaspora to national reconstruction.
Cuba Próxima considers the participation of the diaspora within its institutional design. Cuba11J raised rights of participation for Cubans living outside the island.
The infrastructure reconstruction efforts of Convivencia explicitly propose to invite the diaspora to working groups, investment conferences, and projects funded by their companies.
The diaspora thus emerges not only as a source of remittances or investment but also as a reserve of human, entrepreneurial, 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 considerable production, accumulated over the years and significantly expanded in 2026.
In infrastructure, technical calculations and financing proposals are even emerging. In provisional government, there are specific designs, especially in CABA, Cuba Próxima, and the Liberation Agreement.
In transitional justice there is an ongoing discussion, though not a complete consensus. In health, education, agriculture, aging, and social protection there is a wide range of sectorial proposals.
Where the landscape is clearly less developed is in the last operational mile: who makes the decisions, who controls the security structures, how various authorities coordinate, how disputes among political actors are resolved, how property is protected during transit, and who manages large emergency funds.
It is an important difference.
Having a plan to rebuild the electrical system does not mean having an authority capable of contracting, financing, and overseeing 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 delivery, although 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 capital, 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 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 institutions?
There lies the boundary between having knowledge about how to govern a transition and being truly prepared to govern it.
The third installment of this research will specifically address that 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 that leap from thought and documentation to a true governing capacity.
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