Cuba's regime opens Soberanía for public input on 176 already-approved economic measures

The Government of Cuba enabled the digital platform Soberanía to collect opinions on the package of 176 economic measures. EFE/Ernesto Mastrascusa Cuba's regime opened the Soberanía platform in the first week of November to collect opinions on the 176 economic measures approved in June, when a large part of the program already had procedures and rules in place for its implementation. The digital consultation comes after the political approval and legal advancement of reforms covering wages, subsidies, prices, taxes, state enterprises, property, and public services. Material conditions also limit access to the mechanism. In Santiago de Cuba, ETECSA authorities acknowledged that between 140 and 150 mobile phone stations were out of service each day due to lack of electricity or fuel, in a context of prolonged blackouts and internet interruptions. The package was approved on June 17, 2026, by an extraordinary plenary session of the Central Committee of the Communist Party. The 176 proposals were grouped into 23 thematic areas and were then presented by the Government, after deliberations in the country's main political and state structures. Official information described the process as the result of broad consultations and debates, although the bodies mentioned were the Political Bureau, the Central Committee, the National Assembly of People's Power, and the Council of Ministers. There is no record of a prior popular consultation that would have allowed citizens to learn about the complete program, propose alternatives, or participate in its design before its approval. Power outages and fuel shortages leave between 140 and 150 mobile phone stations out of service daily in Santiago de Cuba. Since June, the authorities have moved the transformations into the legal system through parliamentary laws, decree-laws, Council of Ministers decrees, ministerial resolutions, and other provisions. Some measures modify business organization, while others affect incomes, state aid, property relations, taxes, prices, and public services. As of November 10, the program had accumulated 172 transformations with approved policies and procedures, in addition to 231 legal norms. Of that total, 131 had been published in the Official Gazette. The figures do not determine that the reforms work or that they produce the announced economic effects. They do show that the normative development had advanced considerably before the opening of the digital space for the population to express its views. Citizen disagreement, therefore, may fall on already-approved policies and, in some cases, on provisions that regulate economic and social relations. It was not reported what would happen if a significant number of participants questioned a specific measure, nor whether such rejection could lead to its modification, repeal, or review by the body that issued it. The Government has acknowledged difficulties in implementing the transformations and the gap between administrative progress and the material improvements that the population should be perceiving. The opinions collected could serve to detect policies that have not produced the expected results, identify social rejection, or prepare normative adjustments. The extraordinary plenary session of the Central Committee of the Communist Party approved the 176 economic proposals distributed across 23 thematic areas. (Photo by YAMIL LAGE / AFP)The possibility of introducing corrections is compatible with the progressive development of several measures, some of which still require complementary instruments. However, a consultation that only allows suggestions on the implementation of decisions already made, without permitting questioning of their direction, restricts the scope of citizen participation. There is also the possibility that participation figures will be presented as social endorsement of decisions already adopted, even if the responses include criticism or rejection. The risk increases when the authorities control the questions, classify the opinions, interpret the results, and decide the subsequent consequences. The 2019 Cuban Constitution recognizes citizens' right to participate in the formation, exercise, and control of state power. Article 80 includes popular consultations and other forms of democratic participation; Article 10 establishes duties of attention and response to citizens, and Article 101 incorporates popular control and transparency among the operating principles of state bodies. These norms do not require calling a popular consultation for every government decision. Article 108, paragraph c), allows the National Assembly to submit laws to prior consultation when it deems it appropriate, so the absence of an initial process of this kind does not by itself determine the legal invalidity of the economic program. The official platform allows the submission of opinions, concerns, and proposals. According to the authorities, a system will process the information to identify trends and prepare reports for the responsible agencies. Cuban authorities accumulated 231 legal norms on the economic plan before enabling the citizen consultation platform. REUTERS/Ricardo ArduengoThe mechanism would need to report how many proposals it received, which ones questioned specific measures, with what criteria they were evaluated, and what decisions were adopted based on them. It should also explain the reasons for rejecting recommendations and establish avenues for reviewing legal provisions when there are grounds for doing so. The lack of electricity and connectivity introduces another inequality. Millions of people suffer the consequences of the energy crisis, and blackouts affect both domestic internet access and the functioning of telecommunications. Residents of rural areas, the elderly, families with lower incomes, and those living in territories with more frequent power interruptions face additional obstacles to using the platform. The sample of opinions may be conditioned by the participants' connection capacity and may not reflect the sectors most affected by the reforms. The measures affect workers, retirees, consumers, state enterprises, private entrepreneurs, and families that depend on public services and subsidies in different ways. The information processed by Soberanía will be sent to the agencies responsible for the policies in question.