Cuba gets first PM in over 40 years
HAVANA: Cuba’s first prime minister in more than four decades — long-serving tourism minister Manuel Marrero — took office as the country’s first prime minister in decades, under a new constitution.
The appointment of Marrero, 56, as head of government is part of a process of decentralisation and generational change from the revolutionary old guard that is aimed at extending and protecting Communist Party rule.
“This proposal was duly approved by the political bureau of the Communist Party of Cuba,” President Miguel Diazcanel said, presenting it to the country’s National Assembly, which unanimously signed off.
Immediately after his presentation, Marrero received a handshake from former president Raul Castro, the leader of the Communist Party.
Marrero “is not coming to the job to transform, but rather to implement and manage. The president is the one who leads,” said Cuba specialist Arturo Lopez-levy of university in California.
Marrero served as tourism minister from 2004, late in revolutionary hero Fidel Castro’s administration, continuing in the post under Fidel’s brother Raul and the current president, Diaz-canel.
He began his career in government in 1999 as vicepresident of the powerful Gaviota
Hotel Group belonging to the armed forces, becoming its president a year later — a post he held until 2004.
“Throughout his career... (Marrero) has been characterised by his modesty, honesty, work capacity, political sensitivity and loyalty to the party and the revolution,” Diazcanel said.
The new premier “has led the tourism industry in a commendable fashion, which constitutes one of the main lines of development of the national economy,” he added. That is precisely why Marrero “who has all this wide-ranging experience in tourism and working with investors,” is the pick, according to Lopez-levy.
“It underscores the priority that this area holds in the country’s development strategy,” he said.