The leader of the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV), General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong is 76 years old this year and has assumed this position for two consecutive terms.
The 14th Plennum of the CPV’s Central Committee, just opened in Hanoi on December 14, 2020 with an important content introducing senior personnel to nominate for the Politburo and the Party’s Secretariat at the 13th Congress which is scheduled for early next year.
From the Iseas Yusof-Ishak Institute for Southeast Asian Studies in Singapore, Dr. Le Hong Hiep, a Vietnamese political researcher and analyst, makes some of his comments and observations with BBC News Vietnamese about the essence of this Conference.
“According to the process, this 14th Plenum will discuss many issues, including the key personnel issue for the Politburo and the Secretariat next term.
This is an important step towards the next step is to identify the special case, how many cases and what circumstances, and thereby be able to identify candidates for the four positions in the four pillars. So the 14th plenum results will be of great importance to the personnel work of the Congress of the Communist Party of Vietnam in the coming term.”
Regarding the plans for high-level personnel related to what some opinions in public opinion and current watchers, Vietnamese politics called “two-horse“, “three-horse” or “four-horse” races, Dr. Le Hong Hiep mentioned to consider “special” cases:
“This we also have to wait and see, because according to the process one will have to consider all candidates, first the candidates are in the qualifying age, and then consider the special cases.
And when it comes to special cases, it will also have to consider how many cases are considered special and then determine which are specific candidates, since the plenum is not over yet. We do not know yet, but it can be said that these are very important decisions and it will shape the next high-level leadership of Vietnam in the next phase.”
Special case and plans?
Dr. Le Hong Hiep said that he knew that within the party, there are still many debates and opinions on different high-level personnel options and therefore he said that information from the ongoing plenum will help to “relieve” some of the questions posed from there, especially related to “special cases.”
“There are still a lot of unanswered questions over the last time that I’ve come to know and the most obvious we know is that there will be special cases now.
But as I understand there will still be many different options and now the important question is to determine in advance how many special cases there are.
According to and in principle, the special case should only be for the General Secretary position as we have seen, as in the last 12th Congress term, Mr. Nguyen Phu Trong was identified as a special case and there is no special case other than Mr. Trong.
However, in this period, there are many different opinions because the position of General Secretary is said to be for Mr. Tran Quoc Vuong, but there are also many opinions that there may be other candidates so there could be hard competition for this position.
There is also the opinion that Mr. Nguyen Phu Trong may be a necessary person for Vietnam’s leadership in the next term and that in the position of General Secretary, Mr. Trong may not be able to stay, because he has worked for two consecutive terms.
But as President is the first term, so in principle, he is still qualified in terms of the number of terms to be able to hold the presidency, and in the case of Mr. Trong is considered a case with the exception of age, he can still hold the position.”
According to Dr. Le Hong Hiep, following the two cases mentioned above are the General Secretary, President Nguyen Phu Trong and the Standing Secretariat of Tran Quoc Vuong, the current Prime Minister is said to be the special case as “exception” and “special.”
“The third case is Mr. Nguyen Xuan Phuc, there is also an opinion that Mr. Nguyen Xuan Phuc is only 66 years old this year and has just held the position of PM for one term, so he is also eligible to be considered as a case because he is still fit and he has performed fairly well recently as the government leader for his current term.
“So there are two cases where if you are not considered for the position of General Secretary, you may be considered for the position of President or you may stay for an additional term as Prime Minister. However, since he is over 65 years old, if he wants to be nominated for such positions, he must be considered as a special case.
So it can be seen that in the “special cases,” there are up to three such cases, but there are also many assumptions that if so, there is no innovation of religion, as well as the meaning of the special case will no longer be the same.
Because if there are too many special cases, the case itself will no longer be called “special” so there are still debates, different proposals and we also need to consider. The end results like.
But I hope that after this plenum, the picture and visualization of Vietnam’s senior leadership team on the four pillars in the new term will become clearer.”
New faces and candidates for the four pillars?
When asked about new faces that might appear or be added to the Politburo and the Secretariat during the next term at the Party’s 13th Congress, Vietnamese political analyst who is also an international relations expert from the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies from Singapore:
“By this point, I know there are more than two dozen, more precisely 25, 26 or 30 candidates for the Politburo and the Secretariat, so they will have to consider the face whoever is most deserving.
There is still a lot of different information, but as we know it, as usual, secretaries and members of the Secretariat who are not members of the Politburo will be the top candidates for the Politburo next term and we already know about 6-7 people in this area.
There are also other positions in the Government, party organs, ministries, branches or local leaders who still have the confidence to be nominated for the Politburo, as well as the Secretariat for the new term, however, I do not have the final information so I cannot comment on those specific candidates.”
According to Dr. Le Hong Hiep, at the next 13th Congress the top candidates will be selected and filled in the leadership structure still known as the “four pillars” and he makes his comments guessing about the candidate for these four power leaders:
“In my opinion, the ‘four pillars’ scenario is the most obvious and most likely, and currently almost no one is talking about the ‘trilateral’ scenario.
As for who will be assigned to which position, as mentioned above the core issue now has to be to determine how many special cases there are and who they are and these two issues are not yet clarified.
As for the question of being asked about if there are one or more special cases, how long is the length of stay, part or full term, as I have analyzed, if Mr. Nguyen Phu Trong stays, it is likely that he can stay on as President.
As for the position of General Secretary, I believe that Mr. Tran Quoc Vuong, a standing member of the Secretariat will be the most likely candidate.
As for Mr. Nguyen Xuan Phuc, as I mentioned there are three possibilities. One is that he will be the President, the second is that he will continue the position of Prime Minister and the third, in case he cannot be considered a special case, then he will have to retire. Those are three scenarios for Mr. Phuc.”
Not mentioning the case of Politburo member, incumbent National Assembly Chairwoman Nguyen Thi Kim Ngan, but when asked who might be the most brilliant and likely candidate to assume the position of chairperson of the National Assembly of Vietnam in the next term at the 13th Congress, Dr. Le Hong Hiep said:
“Regarding the National Assembly, in my opinion, Ms. Truong Thi Mai will be the most likely candidate for this position.”
What’s new in HR and approach?
At the end of Monday’s February 14 conversation with BBC News Vietnamese, Dr. Le Hong Hiep commented from his own point of view on how to be human resources and the way of the Communist Party to now prepare for the party’s 13th National Congress and commented on whether anything was new, he said:
“In my opinion, the personnel process has been planned by the Communist Party of Vietnam over different terms by setting standards for titles and positions.
Then the process has also been done quite closely, step by step, according to the lang class to be able to choose the most suitable, most capable and qualified candidates to undertake the tasks, responsibility is assigned.
In my opinion, in terms of the process, there is standardization, but there are still things that the regulations cannot cover as special cases that we still have to wait and see. How that case will be selected, specifically determined.
I find that this year and this period are a little different from previous years, that the candidates are not really overwhelming compared to the rest of the contenders, and the ‘special cases’ could be more than one case.
Hence there is its own complexity that we need to keep an eye on to see if this time the CPV leadership, especially General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong, will handle these issues and whether possible will set a precedent for the next congresses or not.
As for the party’s line, on how to do it, I think people still do the same thing for a long time, that is to determine the path, policy, policy, and strategy through the process of compiling great documents Party association, then give it to the people, cadres, and party members for comments, so basically, the way is the same as the previous term,” Dr. Le Hong Hiep told BBC from Singapore.
Thoibao.de (Translated)
Source: https://www.bbc.com/vietnamese/vietnam-55303384
