When Cuban President Raul Castro acknowledged recently that it was time to hand power over to younger leaders, few were expecting the 80-year-old to name somebody even older than himself as his No. 2, but at least one figure from Cuba’s post-Revolution Baby Boom is on the rise — Marino Murillo Jorge has been charged with implementing make-or-break economic reforms that are designed to both loosen the state’s ironclad control and save Cuban socialism.
The blunt-talking, 50-year-old economist stands at the head of a very small class of relatively prominent, relatively youthful Cuban officials who have broken out of obscurity and taken up positions alongside the silver-haired generation that has ruled since 1959.
A stocky man in an XXL guayabera shirt, Murillo is more technocrat than charismatic orator, but he just might have a key role in Cuba’s post-Castro future — if he stays in favor that long.
Murillo’s age sets him apart from most of the other 14 members of the Communist Party’s ruling council, which is headed by Castro and First Vice President Jose Ramon Machado Ventura, also an octogenarian.
Rapid ascent has sometimes been perilous under Fidel and Raul Castro. In 2009, two rising stars thought to be possible successors, Cuban Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque and Cuban Vice President Carlos Lage, were fired and shamed in the official news media, before disappearing from the public eye.
Still, Raul Castro said at a Party Congress in April that the time is near when a new generation of leaders must take the reins and he announced term limits for all political offices. He said officials erred in the past by promoting the wrong young people, not by undercutting them, and that leadership changes could be in store at a party gathering in January.
“The very top level of government and the party leadership remains almost entirely in the hands of the revolutionary generation, of the oldest generation,” said Philip Peters, a Cuba analyst with the Lexington Institute. “So the task remains to bring younger leaders into the top leadership.”
The only two new appointments to the national party’s ruling council in April were relatively young — Murillo and 46-year-old Mercedes Lopez Acea.
Murillo is Raul Castro’s economic czar, tasked with guiding Cuba through what is arguably its greatest challenge since the “special period” of the early 1990s, when billions in aid and trade from Moscow disappeared along with the Soviet Union.
Few details about Murillo are a matter of public record, including basic questions such as where he lives, whether he is married or if he has any children.
He was practically unknown until he became economy minister in early 2009, chosen by Raul Castro to navigate the waters of economic reform without capsizing the revolution’s achievements in health, education and welfare.
The following year, he appeared before parliament to explain the economic changes that would affect everything from transportation and tourism to the subsidized monthly ration card, which Cubans rely on for many basic goods. Murillo answered questions directly and confidently.
“This seems complicated, but it’s not that complicated,” Murillo said of a new tax code under which thousands of newly authorized independent workers would pay a sliding scale based on their earnings. “Those who have to pay will figure it out quickly.”
The sessions were broadcast nationwide and cemented Murillo’s arrival.
“The Cuban people saw him for a day and a half on television last December when he explained and defended the new policies in the legislature, including exchanges with Raul Castro,” Peters said. “He dealt with such sensitive matters as layoffs and the reduction of subsidies, always with the assuredness of a man with political backing from on high.”
In March, Murillo was promoted to head a commission overseeing both the economic changes. Among his tasks is to improve efficiency, slash bloated state spending and allow greater space for small private enterprise.
Murillo’s political staying power may be closely linked to how well Cuba weathers that storm. While it is too early to anoint him as a possible successor to the Castros, no other young leader enjoys as much power and prominence.
“He’s a figure who’s clearly very trusted by Raul Castro,” Peters said. “He’s working at the center of the most important strategic initiative of the country and he is the person of the next generation whose profile has increased more than anyone else’s. Where that leads, who knows?”
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