Cuba's Castro proposes setting limits for public office
Cuban President Raul Castro addresses the Communist Party Congress on Saturday at the Convention Palace in Havana.
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
- President says 10 years should be maximum
- He and brother Fidel Castro have ruled country since 1959
- But younger generation not ready yet, he says
Havana, Cuba (CNN) -- Cuban President Raul Castro on Saturday proposed setting term limits for public office in a country where two brothers have ruled for more than 50 years.
"We have arrived at the conclusion that it is advisable to limit the fundamental political and state offices to a maximum period of two consecutive periods of five years," Castro said at the inauguration of a critical Communist Party meeting.
After his 1959 revolution, Fidel Castro was in power until 2006, when illness forced him to hand the reins over to his younger brother Raul Castro.
Raul Castro was officially elected in 2008.
At the Communist Party Congress -- the first in 14 years -- Castro also said it was time for a "systematic rejuvenation of the whole chain of party and administrative posts," including the president of the party and of the Council of Ministers.
But he also said Cuba's leadership had failed to prepare a younger generation to take over, leaving them without "a reserve of substitutes who were adequately prepared."
