MEXICO CITY — At 36, Spanish-born Juan Camilo Mourino was already the quiet power behind the throne in Mexico. He controlled the calendar of President Felipe Calderon and appointed the top deputies of each member of Calderon's Cabinet.
On Wednesday, the green-eyed man known by the nickname "Ivan" officially became the second most powerful man in Mexico. Calderon named him interior secretary, the top Cabinet post and a traditional springboard to the presidency.
Mourino was born in Madrid, the scion of a wealthy Spanish family that moved to Mexico when he was 7. He remained a Spanish citizen until age 18.
His rise to power, achieved in little more than a decade in politics, is an unlikely story in a country where Spaniards are still linked with empire and conquest.
Mourino has the youthful good looks and European features most commonly associated here with TV actors. But before Wednesday, few Mexicans had heard his voice. Even among Mexico's political class, he's an unknown quantity.
"This guy hasn't done anything in his life to deserve the crown jewel of the Cabinet," said Federico Estevez, a political scientist. "He's a blank page. Appointing him is an incredibly bold and risky move by Calderon."
As Calderon's chief of staff for 13 months, Mourino has been described in a handful of profiles as the president's behind-the-scenes "fireman" and "negotiator."
"He never speaks in public events and only whispers in the president's ear or to the Cabinet members who stand close to him and try and greet him," the newspaper El Universal wrote in a profile Wednesday.
Mourino takes over a sprawling bureaucracy that is a vestige of Mexico's authoritarian past. The Interior Ministry, known as Gobernacion in Spanish, monitors many key aspects of the country's political and cultural life, including domestic intelligence gathering, immigration, and relations between the president's office and Mexico's 31 states.
Gobernacion also controls disaster relief, television commercials, movie ratings and the official news agency, Notimex.
"As a Mexican it is an honor and a privilege to assume this new responsibility," Mourino said at a news conference, looking somewhat tentative in his new public role. "Mr. President, you can count on my loyalty."
Mourino's family arrived in Mexico in the late 1970s and made its fortune in gas stations in the Gulf state of Campeche. But the Mourinos never lost their ties to Spain -- his father owns Celta de Vigo, one of Spain's leading soccer teams.
