By Frank Jack Daniel
HAVANA (Reuters) - Cuban President Raul Castro will serve a second term as head of the Communist Party and others in power since a 1959 revolution also kept their jobs, the party said on Tuesday, despite a plan to open up to younger leaders over time.
Castro, 84, had proposed age limits and term limits for top leaders as the party gathered for the start of a four-day congress over the weekend, raising expectations septuagenarian and octogenarian veterans would begin to step aside.
But he also made clear that such changes would not be rushed as the country takes a methodical approach to reform.
At the end of the congress, the first in five years, the Communist Party said Castro had been re-elected as first secretary, with Jose Ramon Machado Ventura, 85, re-elected as second secretary.
Younger blood was not elected. In a sign of the secrecy with which the congress has been conducted, the closing speeches and results of the country's most important political event were not broadcast live on state television, which instead showed a soap-opera.
Castro has called for sweeping changes in the management of Cuba's Soviet-style command economy and wants top leaders to retire at 70. But he said the next five years would be for transition and such rules would not be fully applied until then.
The Communist Party, which was founded in 1965 and is seen as more powerful in Cuba than the government. The 1,000 delegates who chose the top leadership included former President Fidel Castro, 89, who sent his vote in an envelope carried by his younger brother Raul.
Fidel Castro also was seen at the congress on Tuesday.
The congress is not due to reconvene until 2021. Castro steps down as Cuba's president in 2018 and it is not yet clear whether he will stay on as party leader for the full five-year term.
His No. 2, Machado Ventura, fought alongside Fidel Castro and Ernesto "Che" Guevara in their rebellion against a U.S.-backed government in the 1950s.
There are younger faces in senior roles, including Miguel Diaz-Canel, 55, who as first vice president of the country is widely seen as Raul Castro's successor. He was re-elected to a senior position in the party.