HAVANA — Cuba clicked into crisis mode Friday, postponing a key Communist Party congress aimed at charting a post-Castro future and announcing that its woeful economy is worse than expected.
Cubans will have to make do with less, top communists suggested, and they insisted the armed forces are strong enough to deal with any unrest.
The island’s top two political bodies — the Council of Ministers and the Communist Party’s Central Committee — huddled in secret on how to guide Cuba through what President Raul Castro was quoted as calling a “very serious” crisis.
Such frank language is uncommon in a country where the state controls all news media, restricts free speech and assembly, and tolerates no organized political opposition. But it is no secret that the global financial crisis has pounded the desperately poor nation.
Indefinitely postponing the much anticipated congress, traditionally held about every five years, came as central planners dropped 2009 growth projections from 2.5 percent to 1.7 percent.
That’s down from a high of 12.5 percent in 2006 — and from projections as recently as December that Cuba would grow 6 percent this year.
Carmelo Mesa-Lago, an expert on the Cuban economy at the University of Pittsburgh, said the island could easily end the year with negative growth.
