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Three days after President Raúl Castro, 79, caused a small sensation with a speech in which he professed to be “embarrassed” about the Cuban leadership’s inability to rejuvenate itself, the Central Committee of the Communist Party selected a slimmed-down 15-member slate for the powerful Politburo that is more about continuity than renewal.
In his closing speech of the 6th Party Congress, Castro blamed a self-inflicted lack of “mature substitutes.” Even so, he insisted, the nominations of three new Politburo members reflect a “first step” in a steady process towards rejuvenation, “without haste or improvisation.”
Castro said that the previous number of 24 Politburo seats had been “excessive”.
In the meantime, more substantial turnover occurred in the less powerful 115-member Central Committee, which added 59 mostly new and younger members on Tuesday. Newcomers include Central Bank President Ernesto Medina, and Luis Alberto Rodríguez López-Calleja, president of military business holding GAESA and son-in-law of Raúl Castro. Forty-eight Central Committee members are now women, and 36 are black or mixed-race, Castro said. The Party rank-and-file will gather again Jan. 28 next year to select a new Central Committee and discuss reform of internal party structures.
The new Central Committee. Photo: Ismael Francisco/Cubadebate
The three new faces joining the select elite of the Politburo are Marino Murillo, 50; Adel Yzquierdo Rodríguez, 65, and Mercedes López Acea, 46, the only woman and youngest person on the slate. Murillo, formerly an economy minister, was moved up in March to oversee the economic reform process. Yzquierdo was Party secretary in the province of Santiago de Cuba before becoming chief economic planner for the armed forces, deputy economy minister, and finally economy minister. He is an engineer by training. López Acea is First Secretary of the Party in Havana.
López Acea
Murillo
During the opening speech of the 6th Communist Party Congress Saturday, Castro — who was reconfirmed as First Secretary on Tuesday — urged Party officials to promote “women, black people and people of mixed race, and youths to decision-making positions.”
“Today, we are faced with the consequences of not having a reserve of well-trained replacements with sufficient experience and maturity to undertake the new and complex leadership responsibilities in the Party, the state and government, a problem we should solve gradually, in the course of five years,” Castro said Saturday.
Castro also urged for term limits of two five-year periods in “fundamental political and state posts.”
The probably biggest disappointment for impatient reformers was the confirmation of José Machado Ventura, 80, as second secretary on Tuesday, effectively Castro’s second-in-command. Machado, a physician and veteran of the revolution, has served in a variety of high-ranking posts since the 1960s. Even so, this is the first time in decades that someone who is not a Castro officially takes the No. 2 post of the hierarchy.
The continuing Politburo members are Ramiro Valdés (the No. 3 of the hierarchy), 79, Abelardo Colomé Ibarra, 72, Julio Casas Regueiro, 75, Esteban Lazo, 67, Ricardo Alarcón, 73, Miguel Díaz-Canel, 50, Leopoldo Cintra Frías, 69, Ramón Espinosa Martín, 72, Alvaro López Miera, 79, and Salvador Valdés Mesa, 78.
