Poll: 78% of Cubans would vote for change in Cuba - 90% want a change to market economy

There is never going to be change for the better as long as the murdering communists are in power. The PCC congress was like a last breath of the beast, filled with more bull and no substance.

There can be no progress without freedon in all forms!!!

Change will come, Fidel and his brother will fall and Cuba will have it's chance to find a better path.

Here we are: an article by Al-Jazeera that actually looks at the government plan to change the economic system:

http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/features/2011/04/2011415115956558182.html

"In 2007, Raúl Castro, who is now officially second secretary, said he would introduce "structural and conceptual" reforms needed to bolster the economy.

The president sees the "economic battle" as "the principal task and the key ideological work" of the PCC and the Young Communist League (UJC), "because on this depends the sustainability and preservation" of Cuba's socialist system.

The discussions in the sixth congress will focus on a 32-page document called the Draft Guidelines for Economic and Social Policy, which was previously submitted to popular debates in which more than seven million of Cuba's 11.2 million people reportedly took part.

Suggestions expressed by ordinary Cubans in the nationwide neighbourhood or workplace meetings led, according to official sources, to the modification of more than two-thirds of the 291 paragraphs in the draft guidelines.

The draft document, "enriched" by the popular debates, will serve as the basis for designing the party's strategy and creating mechanisms and instruments to achieve the desired economic and social model of the economist Armando Nova.

The draft guidelines will introduce sweeping changes, such as a much greater role for private enterprise. But the document clarifies that economic policy will be based on "the principle that only socialism is capable of overcoming the difficulties."

Another expected change is the eventual expansion of the system of cooperatives, currently limited to agriculture, to the areas of industry and services.

There are also hopes that the possibility of self-employment, currently authorised for 178 private activities, will be expanded. As things stand now, university students cannot use their skills in private business, as none of the permitted occupations involve professional activities.

Self-employment was introduced in Cuba for some 150 occupations in 1993, at the height of the economic crisis that hit the country in the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union and East European socialist bloc. It was expanded last year when the government announced massive lay-offs of public employees, potentially affecting one million people by the end of 2011."

Sadly, it's not up to them. It's up to Castro. Or the free radicals in his bloodstream, if you know what I mean.

I would be interested to find out what the Cubans' collective perception of "market economy" is.

it would be great if america was a capitalist country but sadly it is not. it a plutalist country for lack of a better. a economy that only serves the interests of the elite while giving everybody else shit. socialize losses privatize profits. and let the rich get away with murder

A foolish and immature fad. Capitalism has failed America. Once the Cubans think about it, they will realize that a Progressive and socialist system with good health and education is much more preferable than the conservative capitalist economy in America.

You can reach the International Research Institute's (IRI) website at: http://www.iri.org/

And you can see their reports here in PDF form:

Survey: http://www.iri.org/sites/default/files/2011%20April%20Cuba%20Poll%20Final%20Surv...

Analysis: http://www.iri.org/sites/default/files/2011%20April%2014%20IRI%20Cuba%20Poll%20A...