HAVANA (AP) – Cubans overwhelmingly expect detente with the United States to alter their widely disliked economic system, according to a rare poll of 1,200 people across the island.
The poll released Wednesday found less optimism about Cuba’s political future, with 54 percent saying the single-party government would not change as a result of closer ties. The poll found that 53 percent of Cubans are dissatisfied with the political system and 52 percent want more than one political party.
The poll also found that 97 percent of those interviewed thought normalization with the U.S. was good for Cuba and that while 55 percent want to emigrate from Cuba, 73 percent feel optimistic about the future.
Seventy-nine percent of those polled over 10 days last month by the Miami-based polling firm Bendixen & Amandi on behalf of The Washington Post and Univision Noticias/Fusion said they were not satisfied with Cuba’s centrally planned economy. But 64 percent said they expected that system to change because of the decision late last year to re-establish diplomatic ties between the countries and move toward normalization. The poll, which Bendixen & Amandi call the most comprehensive measure of Cuban public opinion in decades, did not break down the ways in which respondents expected it to change.
The results show the limits of a Cuban effort to lower expectations of better lives because of the Dec. 17 announcement by presidents Barack Obama and Raul Castro. Most Cubans were elated by the announcement and Obama’s loosening of restrictions on trade. Many said it removed their government’s ability to blame a stagnant economy and widespread shortages of basic goods on a half-century of U.S. isolation.