After becoming General Secretary of the ruling Communist Party of Vietnam, analysts assessed that former police chief To Lam is “the first head of state with real power in Vietnam in the past half century.”
Perhaps, it is because General To Lam successfully campaigned and carried out a “soft coup” within the party, to become a leader with absolute power. Although he was once a right-hand man of late General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong in the “furnace” campaign, his name is not on the list of successors to the position of General Secretary.
The reason is that To Lam’s political perspective is completely different from Trong’s. He is considered a pragmatic, resourceful person, and does not believe in the Communist doctrine – something that humanity has thrown into the trash.
After becoming General Secretary, many opinions believe that Lam will have political changes, maybe even destroy the old model, to change the political model with Lam’s own identity.
In his first article as General Secretary, Lam said that he will focus on removing institutional obstacles, with the aim of making Vietnam rich, strong, democratic, fair, civilized, etc. and at the same time commit and determined to build a strong Communist Party of Vietnam.
After becoming General Secretary, Lam received congratulations from many countries. Notably, on August 8, he had a phone call with Russian President Putin. Accordingly, Putin expressed his joy and desire to welcome Lam to visit the Russian Federation.
From the above event, there are opinions that Lam will lead Vietnam to follow the dictatorial model of Russian President Putin. Meanwhile, internal sources told thoibao.de that Lam is very interested in China’s unification model – the model that Xi Jinping has applied since 2013.
However, unlike Vietnam – where the Communist Party monopolizes the political stage, in China, there are up to 8 different parties, called “democratic parties.” But in fact, these parties are all extensions of the Chinese Communist Party and are united in “respecting” the Chinese Communist Party as the country’s leading force. At the same time, the autocratic power of the Chinese Communist Party is also stipulated in the Chinese Constitution.
Observers believe that perhaps Lam is not very sympathetic to the word “democracy” even if it is only formal.
China’s political model under Xi is to build a socialist rule-of-law state, and the Chinese Communist Party leads the country. Meanwhile, Russia’s political model, under the rule of President Putin, is nominally a “democratic rule of law state” in a multi-party political system. However, in reality, Putin has stifled democracy and destroyed the opposition. Therefore, Russian politics depends on the national security situation, and the majority will of the Russian people in elections.
Public opinion believes that Lam will not maintain the “virtuous rule” like Trong but will initially build a “socialist rule of law” state, with the sole leadership of the Communist Party. At the same time, the security system will tightly control society like Russia today. This is an issue that Lam has firmly grasped, with a fully established police system.
According to analysts, if Lam wants to “rchange the political system” and remove the obstacles caused by the current political system, the activities of the Communist Party of Vietnam must be legalized.
At the same time, according to the Constitution – “the supreme power of the State belongs to the people,” Article 4 of the Constitution on the leadership role of the Communist Party is unconstitutional. Thus, Lam only needs to remove Article 4 and legislate the activities of the party, and immediately, the Vietnamese state under his leadership will follow the model of Russia today.
Tra My – Thoibao.de
