In 2011, Nguyen Phu Trong became General Secretary by choosing “crown prince” without going through a deadly fight to rise. Although his path up was quite peaceful, at that time, the position of General Secretary was dwarfed by Nguyen Tan Dung’s position as Prime Minister.
General Secretary Trong had to spend the entire first term to regain his original position as the party chief. It was not until the end of his first term that he successfully eliminated his biggest rival Dung, from the political arena.
After eliminating this biggest opponent, with power firmly in his hands, Trong began to reform the party. The main goal is to build a power ecosystem for himself, so that no one can threaten him anymore. However, to achieve this goal, he must also exhort to purify the party. Therefore, he set up a “furnace” nominally to “burn” corrupt officials, hitting two purposes like an arrow: both consolidating firm power and gaining a reputation for integrity against corruption.
Trong’s political career as General Secretary can be summarized in a short descriptive phrase – that is: “consolidation – prosperity – decline.” His first term was the time he consolidated power; the second term was the period when his power reached its peak; and the third term, although not yet over, it can be clearly seen that his political career has declined.
The corruption “incinerator” began to be established in 2016. During 5 years, Trong burned many high-ranking officials, including a Politburo member who had to go to prison. During this time, he gained the trust of many people.
However, by the third term, people had enough time to reflect on his “burning” achievements. There have been questions about why the firewood never burns out, and in fact, the more he burns, the more corruption appears.
Nguyen Duc Chung went to prison, but his replacement, Chu Ngoc Anh, was no better, even worse. Similarly, in many other cases, the person who replaced the greedy official who became firewood was not purer, but was just someone who had not been exposed.
Then the purge under the guise of “anti-corruption with no forbidden areas” was abused by his subordinates, defeating other subordinates, also his, to emerge as an unrivaled force in the Party. From here, the Party became a “pot of pig bran” when too many factions emerged and fought non-stop. No one cares about the country’s discipline or the Party’s rules, they just fight each other between the strong and the weak.
When Trong first became General Secretary, the Communist leadership also had two factions – Trong’s faction and Dung’s faction. After defeating Dung’s faction, he became “Party boss” for a time. Now, this party leadership has many factions with interwoven interests, and fighting each other chaotically. Among them, we can mention: Trong’s faction, Hung Yen faction, Nghe An faction, Ha Tinh faction, Ninh Binh faction, Thanh Hoa faction, etc. Each faction took advantage of strengthening its forces.
Then, Trong will also leave politics in the near future. Maybe, he will be forced to leave his position, or maybe, he will die while in office. The possibility of him returning to Marx-Le is very high, because his health is deteriorating day by day. His life is currently being maintained and prolonged thanks to medication. Although there was no shortage of medicine, when his strength was exhausted, the medicine would be useless.
After Trong’s time will be a Communist Party full of instability and division. That will be a period of “warlord chaos” when factions continue to emerge and fight each other to compete for power.
At that time, the people will be even more miserable, the country will lose even more, as groups compete to ask for help from China, and of course, they do not forget to bring “gifts” from national interests to pray for help.
Hoang Phuc – Thoibao.de
