What Cubans Really Want
The respected International Republican Institute, which promotes democracy and the rule of law around the world, has issued its eighth annual Cuban Public Opinion Survey canvassing Cubans' attitudes towards the present and future direction of their country. The findings are instructive, if not also a bit contradictory:
Repression of free speech and personal freedoms remains high. 69 percent responded that in the last two years it has not been easier for Cubans to speak their minds in public without retribution.
53 percent state that the Cuban government is repressive against its own people.
64 percent think Cubans should be able to vote to decide who should be their president.
79 percent believe the reforms undertaken by the Cuban government over the last six years are important and 45 percent believe their family's economic situation will improve over the coming year, an increase by 15 percent over the previous year. Yet two-thirds say their family's economic situation has neither changed over the past year nor have they benefited from the reforms.
Cuts in government payrolls and the lack of private sector opportunities are compelling more Cubans to enter the informal/black market economy to survive. Private sector employment has risen by only three percent from last year, while those who claimed to work in the informal sector increased by nine percent.
Contrary to government claims of increased access to the internet on the island, only four percent of respondents reported having access to both internet and email.
IRI officials speculate that the optimism for the next twelve months might be due to the government’s relaxing of restrictions on foreign travel earlier this year, the most popular of the reforms.
Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/05/23/3412885/cubans-more-optimistic-about-castros.html#storylink=cpy
Afro-Cubans, women and the 80 percent of respondents who said they did not receive remittances from abroad tended to be more pessimistic, while those who receive remittances appear more positive about Pres. Raul Castro’s reforms. Also, a greater proportion of those from the eastern and central parts of the island said they weren't benefiting compared with residents of Havana and western Cuba.
IRI interviewed 688 Cubans aged 18 and older in all of Cuba's fourteen provinces. IRI reps say they work “discreetly” in Cuba because the communist government bans independent surveys, but decline further details. My hat is off to IRI and its poll takers, who risk imprisonment if caught. My experience working in Cuba was that Cubans can be quite voluble and outspoken with foreigners even in a society riddled with regime snitches.
Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/05/23/3412885/cubans-more-optimistic-about-castros.html#storylink=cpy
But here's the bottom line: this year, Fidel and Raul turn 87 and 82 respectively. The average age of Cuba's Politburo members is 68. Old men and reform tend to be oxymoronic by definition. What reforms Raul is instituting are too little, too late and, thus far, not appearing to gain much traction. Finally, the desire of Cubans for political freedoms comes out very clearly in IRI's survey.
See also:
End of Days for the Castro Brothers
Havana Queen