In its upcoming 13th Congress, the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV) will decide its key personnel and Vietnam’s government in the new term. This is the group that has long been known as the “four pillars”, referring to the four key posts of the Party and its government as the general secretary, the country’s president, the prime minister and the head of the National Assembly.
But of course, the most important is still the title of General Secretary of the Party. In essence, over 90 million Vietnamese people have been marginalized by the party, they have no right to manage or run the country. People could not interfere or contribute any ideas, only paid taxes and watched the Party’s games.
CPV has just published the full text of Politburo Regulation 214 on the standard framework for selecting the highest titles in Vietnam, including the Four Pillars.
Two years ago General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong signed a similar document called Regulation 90, published in August 2017. The new regulation 214 was also signed by Mr. Trong to adjust the standard for new personnel at the 13th Party Congress.
Rule 214 adds a new word “gathering”:
The General Secretary is “the center of solidarity, gathering and promoting the synergy of the entire political system, the whole Party, the entire people and the power of the era to successfully carry out two strategic construction tasks and national defense, the goal ‘rich people, strong country, democracy, justice and civilization.”
The 2017 regulation requires the General Secretary “to be highly qualified in political theory and to build the Party.” But by 2020, the General Secretary only needs to have “deep, broad and comprehensive knowledge in the fields of politics, economy, culture, society, national defense, security, foreign affairs, building the Party and the state administration management”
The highest and most important position in Vietnam is the position of CPV’s general secretary, and as usual, every time before the Party Congress, General Secretary Trong will issue a new document regulating the standard general secretary to eliminate the non-allies from this power chair
In 2017, the regulation asked the Secretary-General to “develop new ideas and big and long-term strategies“.
This phrase has been removed. Instead, the request for the Secretary-General of 2020 added new words is to have “sharp thinking”, and the new word is “calm.”
Specifically, the whole relevant sentence in Regulation 214 of 2020 is “Having political prowess, sharp thinking, research capacity, finding, proposing and assertive; calm and lucid before difficult and complicated issues related to the fate of the Party, the nation, the people.”
In 2017, it is required that the General Secretary “has the capacity to direct the preparation and building of a team of strategic officials, especially the successors.” In 2020, the word “direction” is removed and replaced with the word “leader”: “Having the leadership ability to build a team of strategic officials, especially the successors and key officials.”
The 2017’s version required the General Secretary to “successfully complete the mission”.
In 2020, it has been lowered to “complete the task.”
Recently published documents show that the idea of uniting the two presidents and the CPV’s general secretary is not put into the official language.
This idea of ”unification” was raised after President Nguyen Phu Trong took office as President after Quang’s death.
So far, however, these positions are still separate and will continue to do so at the 13 Communist Party Congress, scheduled for early 2021.
Thus, Mr. Nguyen Phu Trong and the Politburo have not really asserted the unified model that China has applied for a long time.
But this important issue may be decided by the 13th Congress itself, along with the final outcome of the Three Pillars or the Four Pillars.
Dr. Nguyen Hong Hai, researcher, Center for Policy Future, Department of Humanities and Sociology, University of Queensland, Australia, interviewed BBC News Vietnamese over the phone:
There are currently three candidates emerging for the position of General Secretary, Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc, National Assembly Chairman Nguyen Thi Kim Ngan and Standing Secretary Tran Quoc Vuong.
Mr. Tran Quoc Vuong has many advantages to become General Secretary, because he is currently the fourth power position in the Party (after Trong has assumed the position of President since August 2018).
He has also held a position suitable to the title of party leader. In this position, the age requirement may also apply to exceptions.
A traditional ‘four pillar’ model would then have other options, such as Central Organizing Committee Chairman Pham Minh Chinh, Defense Minister Ngo Xuan Lich or even NA’s Vice Chairman Tong Thi Phong.
According to Dr. Hai, “Vietnam’s economic achievements in the current term, especially in the past 2019, as well as Mr. Phuc’s performance in foreign affairs over the past time have shown that he is the biggest candidate.”
Moreover, since Mr. Nguyen Phu Trong has suffered from illness in Kien Giang up to now, Mr. Phuc has stood out almost as an executive, directing in roles in fields such as defense and police, which is the duties of the General Secretary. Next year, Mr. Phuc is 67 years old – the age is not too high – at the same time, observing, Mr. Phuc is well qualified to take over the work of a General Secretary and President.
Mr. Tran Quoc Vuong will have the advantage to become General Secretary if the party returns to the traditional ‘four pillars’ model.
However, he has not shown much in foreign affairs or economic management, so Mr. Nguyen Xuan Phuc is the biggest candidate for the party’s leader post
However, Ms. Ngan also did not win the full support, because there are ideas that she was not good enough to be the prime minister, besides that she has recently been entangled in the case for many people on the special plane to South Korea and they fled to stay
Another candidate for this position instead of Ms. Ngan is Deputy Prime Minister Vuong Dinh Hue – who is in charge of the government’s economic sector.
When asked about some observers’ previous predictions regarding the possibility of Mr. Nguyen Thien Nhan becoming Prime Minister, Dr. Nguyen Hong Hai said that this is difficult.
“Few will support Mr. Nhan’s becoming Prime Minister,” he said, looking at his achievements as Deputy Prime Minister, the Minister of Education and Training, and then the Chairman of the Vietnam Fatherland Front Committee even when he went to Ho Chi Minh City to be the Secretary of the cityl Party Committee, we could see that he was a peaceful, not drastic person.
“Meanwhile, with GDP growth of 7.2% as in 2019, it is very difficult for the coming years to maintain the momentum of growth at least or not below that level. This requires the Prime Minister to be very active and drastic in direction and administration.
“The Communist Party of Vietnam will be determined to promote anti-corruption. It is very important to ensure the legitimacy and maintain the faith in the regime,” Dr. Hai told BBC News Vietnamese.
“If an individual comes to power without continuing the fight against corruption, he or she goes against people’s expectations and that will threaten the regime.”
“The anti-corruption campaign now focuses on the grand sentences and that is the legacy of the previous term.
The list of convictions will continue to be investigated, prosecuted and tried in 2020 was finalized at the 17th meeting of the Central Steering Committee on Anti-Corruption on Jan 15.
“Suppose if the next great term is determined in the next term, it will be the great one of this term. That means confirming that this term has a problem. And then, it feels like The new term is to revive up the wrongs of the previous term.
Vietnam is a country with a population of nearly 100 million and has declared its independence for 75 years. But in the same way, countries in Asia and around the world operate the countries in a democracy and freedom with a rule of law state, which brings prosperity and social justice to the people, they were more successful than Vietnam tens to hundreds of times.
In Vietnam, under the rule of the Communist Party, people increasingly lost their democratic voice, absolutely no right to vote freely to choose a worthy leadership team serving the country.
Now, the Communist Party, no matter how many times it has changed, when its still uses the foreign Marxism-Leninism that has been abandoned long time ago in the world, will only bring suffering, unjust and mourning for Vietnamese people.
That needs to change, and the Vietnamese people will decide their own destiny and the nation.
Trung Nam from Da Nang – Thoibao.de (Translated)
