Havana ? Cuba’s revolutionary old guard consolidated its hold on power Sunday when the National Assembly bypassed a new, younger generation of politicians and named Fidel Castro’s brother, Raul, president and a hard-line communist first vice president.

The unanimous decision dealt a blow to Cubans who had hoped Sunday would mark a dramatic change of direction for the island nation ruled for nearly five decades by Fidel Castro, 81, who announced Tuesday that he was stepping down after a long illness.

In his acceptance speech, Raul Castro, 76, promised to “complete” his brother’s work during his five-year term as president of the Council of State, a position considered equivalent to head of state.

Raul offered little promise of major changes beyond streamlining inefficient government agencies and improving Cuba’s dismal agricultural production. He said he would consider ending the country’s dual currency system, which lets tourists use convertible pesos that have more buying power than the pesos Cubans use.

“Fidel is irreplaceable,” Raul said in his address, which was broadcast nationwide. “Fidel is with us as he always has been, with a clear mind.”

The new first vice president, Jose Ramon Machado Ventura, 77, fought in the Sierra Maestra mountains with the Castro brothers during the Cuban Revolution. Trained as a doctor, he has held a series of Communist Party and government posts and is known for his strict adherence to communist doctrine. He is generally believed to be one Raul Castro’s closest confidants.

Yoani Sanchez, a moderate dissident blogger in Havana, said in an interview that the selection of Machado Ventura “is a clear signal that the old guard is still in charge and that there hasn’t been a true reorganization.” But Sanchez said that at least Raul Castro “talked about some changes, unlike his brother, who didn’t talk about change.”

In choosing Machado Ventura, the assembly skipped over Carlos Lage, who had emerged as the second-most-powerful figure in the interim government established 19 months ago when Fidel Castro underwent intestinal surgery and temporarily ceded the presidency to his brother. Lage, who was named Sunday as one of five Council of State vice presidents, was one of the architects of reforms that opened the economy to more foreign investment and legalized a few small private businesses.

“I don’t want to say that he is not capable – he’s a brilliant man,” assembly member Ana Fidelia Quirot Moret said of Lage in an interview after the vote. “But Machado is a man of the revolution. He is a historic figure capable of continuing the Cuban Revolution.”

Another lawmaker, Isis Maria Leyva Betancourt, said that the selection of Machado Ventura – known as a “historico” because he fought in the revolution – was evidence that “our history didn’t start here and now, it started in 1959” when Fidel Castro took power at the head of a rebel army. But she added that Lage’s inclusion in the powerful Council of State’s roster of vice presidents gave Cuba “a good mix of historicos and the new generation.”

Fidel Castro’s tenure spanned the Cuban missile crisis, the Bay of Pigs invasion, the fall of the Soviet Union, rhetorical battles with 10 U.S. presidents and a decades-long U.S. trade embargo. The ailing leader, who remains a member of the National Assembly, did not appear Sunday at the drab 1970s convention center that houses Cuba’s legislature.