Switzerland and Cuba: yesterday and today

I am in the city of Zurich, Switzerland, where the great German scientist Albert Einstein lived, studied, and worked, and where a well-known and sadly infamous man for Cubans who love freedom and democracy was also exiled: Vladimir Ilich Lenin, who has become a symbol for communist movements.

I am in this Swiss city, and while I wait for my next flight to Germany, I want to take stock of what has happened in this country over the last seven decades and compare it with the trajectory of my country, Cuba, from the early fifties of the last century to the present day.

In 1950, the Human Development Index from the United Nations Development Programme did not yet exist. Therefore, it would not be accurate to assign an official ranking by the UNDP to Switzerland or Cuba for that time. However, economic historians have reconstructed similar indicators using life expectancy, education, and income.

Nicholas Crafts' calculations for 1950 assigned Switzerland a retrospective index of approximately 0.843. Among the countries studied, Switzerland ranked among the top ten in the world, alongside New Zealand, the Netherlands, the United States, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Australia, the United Kingdom, and Canada. This means that Switzerland was already a highly developed nation when the second half of the twentieth century began.

Another historical reconstruction by Leandro Prados de la Escosura confirms this significant gap compared to most of the world. In that series, Switzerland reached approximately 0.44 in 1950—with a different methodology—while Cuba recorded around 0.28. The important thing is not to directly compare these figures with the modern HDI, but rather to observe the relative position of the countries. At that time, Cuba was approximately at the level of Chile, which also recorded 0.28, and very close to Cyprus, with 0.29. Argentina, with 0.34, and Uruguay, with 0.35, were slightly above.

Depending on the number of countries included in each historical reconstruction, it is not prudent to assign Cuba an exact global ranking. However, the data allows us to place it approximately within the group of relatively better-positioned countries in the developing world—in some comparisons, around the 30th to 40th positions—and among the most advanced economies and societies in Latin America. What is truly revealing emerges when we observe what happened next.

Cuba in 1950, 1951, and the early part of 1952 was not a perfect society either. There were corruption, inequalities, rural poverty, and political violence. However, it operated under the Constitution of 1940, with political parties, a Congress, a diverse press, trade unions, and competitive elections. Carlos Prío Socarrás reached the presidency through the elections of 1948. A study from the U.S. Library of Congress describes the period from 1944 to 1952 as a time of democratic governance, respect for human rights, and accelerated prosperity, although it also highlights corruption and political violence.

Switzerland, for its part, had extraordinarily solid democratic institutions, federalism, the rule of law, and a developed market economy. However, it had not yet completed its political evolution: Swiss women still did not have the right to vote at the federal level. That right came in 1971. The fundamental difference is that the Swiss system continued to gradually expand participation and political rights.

Cuba took a different direction. On March 10, 1952, Fulgencio Batista interrupted the constitutional order through a coup, suspended Congress, and altered the political system. Documents from those years later indicate suspensions of rights such as freedom of expression, press, and assembly.

After the revolutionary triumph of 1959, democracy was not restored either. A single-party system was established, eliminating electoral competition and outlawing political opposition and independent media. Cuba has gone over seven decades without free and competitive elections to determine who governs the country.

The contrast with Switzerland in 2026 is extraordinary.

The latest Human Development Report from the UNDP, published in 2025 and primarily based on data from 2023, ranks Switzerland in second place globally, tied with Norway, with a HDI of 0.970; only Iceland is ahead, at 0.972. Cuba ranks 97th based on 2023 data, with an HDI of 0.762. We are confident that it has dropped several positions in recent months. The largest of the Antilles is experiencing the worst crisis in its history.

It is particularly significant to observe what happened with countries comparable to Cuba in 1950. Chile, which in the historical reconstruction by Prados de la Escosura had exactly the same value as Cuba —0.28—, currently ranks 45th in the HDI and Cyprus 32nd. Cuba is in 97th place. This case illustrates how important it is to not only look at how an indicator changes within a country but also how a society progresses compared to others that started from similar positions.

In terms of political freedoms, the gap is even wider. Freedom House 2026 grants Switzerland 96 points out of 100, classifying it as "Free": 39 out of 40 in political rights and 57 out of 60 in civil liberties. It highlights its direct democracy, decentralization, and widespread respect for fundamental rights.

Cuba scores 9 out of 100 and is classified as "Not Free": 0 out of 40 in political rights and 9 out of 60 in civil liberties. Freedom House highlights the absence of political pluralism, restrictions on independent media, and repression of dissent.

The current situation in Cuba cannot be analyzed solely by relying on official statistics and old speeches about health and education. The present circumstances are characterized by a documented decline in essential services. Human Rights Watch reports serious shortages of food and medicine and notes that authorities acknowledged that only about 30% of the medications deemed essential were available. Amnesty International further documents that power outages directly affect access to health, education, and food.

The IX Study on Social Rights by the Cuban Observatory of Human Rights, based on 1,318 interviews conducted in 79 municipalities during June and July of 2026, estimates that 94% of Cubans live in extreme poverty, according to the methodology used by that organization. It is not an official statistic from the World Bank and should be identified as an independent estimate, but it reflects the magnitude of the current social crisis. 

Seventy-six years after 1950, Switzerland remains at the global forefront of human development and has expanded rights that were still incomplete at that time. Cuba, which entered that decade with free institutions, political pluralism, and a relatively prominent economic and social position in Latin America, now lags far behind in relative human development and is among the countries rated lowest in political rights and civil liberties.

Switzerland and Cuba thus represent two profoundly different historical trajectories: two countries that began the second half of the 20th century from relatively favorable positions, but by 2026 found themselves in very different standings in terms of welfare, institutions, and freedom.