Cuba's national assembly named former President Raul Castro to head the commission charged with carrying out changes to the Soviet-era constitution that would provide legal backing to the island's economic and social opening.

The nomination of Castro Saturday adds to signs the presidential handover in April to 58-year old Miguel Diaz-Canel does not herald a sweeping change to the island's one-party socialist system, one of the last in the world.

The current constitution, adopted in 1976 during the Cold War and amended three times since, calls the party the country's guiding political force – a definition Castro has said will not change in the rewrite.

Castro, the brother of former leader Fidel Castro, first announced the need for a new constitution in 2011 after embarking on a series of reforms cautiously opening up the economy to foreign investment and the private sector in order to make Cuban socialism sustainable.

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