It’s unfortunate that the people of Cuba will have to wait a few years longer for a new generation of leadership to take control of the country and usher in the vast reforms needed to turn around its beleaguered economy, as well as possibly improve the island nation’s relations with the United States.

But that reality emerged from a congress of the ruling Communist Party, despite Fidel Castro’s formal departure from the party’s leadership for the first time since the party’s formation in 1965.

While some Cubans hoped — indeed, anticipated — that the congress would put in effect a transition to new, younger party leadership, that hope was dashed when senior stalwarts were appointed to top positions.

By one count, half of the members of the “new” 15-member Politburo, which has changed only slightly from the previous one, are in their 70s. Only three members are under 60. New faces include the 46-year-old head of the Communist Party in Havana and a 50-year-old former economy minister.

Meanwhile, rather than leaning toward a new generation of leadership for the near future, President Raul Castro, 79, elected as the first secretary of Cuba’s Communist Party, replacing his 84-year-old brother Fidel, named an 80-year-old hard-line Communist official as his right-hand man.

The hanging-on by the old generation of leadership is the main reason why significant economic reforms in Cuba are so slow in coming.

Raul Castro has made broad economic reforms a centerpiece of his government, but the president said it could take five years for some of his new plans to be enacted.

Cuba observers regard that timetable as too protracted to have a measurable impact on the economic woes that will continue to afflict the country.

The Los Angeles Times quoted Raul Castro as saying, “Updating the economic model is not a miracle that can be achieved overnight, as some people think.”

However, achievements on the economic front might be more quickly realized without a leadership that has a revolutionary mind-set rooted in the 1950s and 1960s.

Meanwhile, hopes of many Cubans for better relations with the United States, relations seen as a key to Cuba making important strides toward overcoming its economic challenges, must wait for a time when both Castros are totally out of the picture, as well as many of the other elderly officials who remain so resistant to relinquishing their control and power.

Between them, Fidel and Raul Castro have ruled Cuba for more than 50 years, and they have held the two top Communist Party positions since the party’s 1965 formation. During that half-century, Cuba’s progress has been thwarted by an attitude of holding back the people, rather than building upon their potential with expanded economic and political freedoms.

It might take a few more years, thanks to the latest party congress, but that time is coming.