Before I start, I would like to ask you:
First, those who voted 5 years ago: do you remember the name of the delegate you elected or the name of the person who was elected to represent you then?
Also, do you know what the delegate did, such as what he said in parliament and how he voted on the bills?
Second, who goes to the polls this May 23: do you remember the names of the candidates on your shortlist, or do you have to go to the polls to find out?
Also, do you know what kind of action plan those people have? Can you imagine what impact they would have on your life if elected?
If the majority’s answer is “Yes” to both of the above question groups, it means that in Vietnam there is a true, substantive, healthy election in which the people actively participate in the election to exercise the right to decide their own destiny and that of the country.
And if the majority says “No,” that means the election and Congress is somewhere in your mind. Voters have gone to the polls, but after the election is over, the National Assembly and voters will go that route. Voting is just a shell with no guts or voting is just getting things done.
I don’t have the data to conclude either way. A new large-scale survey is needed to get an accurate answer, but will the Vietnamese government allow such a survey?
Full control
Of course, it can also be argued that all information about candidates and delegates is obvious; Meetings and contacts with voters both before and after the election were also full there. Those who don’t know, just refuse to find, refuse to read, and attend. But why not if they are aware that it is an important matter affecting their lives and the destiny of the country?
To make it clearer, let’s look at the US election for a moment: voters need to know who the two-state senators or district congressmen are in order to track whether they serve their interests or not. When there is an urgent need, you can knock on the door for help. For example, the Vietnamese community can ask their congressmen to speak out to the government about the deporting order of Vietnamese people, or Asian voters can ask their representatives to have a strong voice about anti-Asian sentiment, or Republican voters living and dying with former President Donald Trump closely monitor the progress of the impeachment process in Congress to ‘pin’ which Republicans vote in favor to later ‘account’ with a surname.
Of course, apples cannot be compared with oranges. The two countries are not in the same system. Political regimes are different from heaven and earth. Depending on the political regime, the election has that meaning, principle, and format. It is not possible to require the one-party regime in Vietnam to follow the multi-party electoral system like in the US and vice versa.
For example, in the US with two major parties, elections must be held independently with close supervision of both parties to ensure fairness. Any party can’t do it on its own to influence the election results (although recently a loser has said that the other party is “cheating,” but there are not many people in the same party to help). In Vietnam, to be honest, under one-party conditions, it is not possible to have an independent and fair election.
Biden Trump
“In the United States with two major parties, elections must be held independently with close supervision of both parties to ensure fairness.”
Vietnam’s National Electoral Council belongs to the ruling party. The head of the Council is the chairman of the National Assembly and a member of the Politburo of the Party. The Fatherland Front Committee – the consultative body to come up with the list of candidates – is also the extension arm of the Party. From top to bottom, all belong to the Party.
From selecting, introducing, and negotiating candidates to allocating and arranging constituencies, from propagating and promoting candidates to counting votes, announcing election results, everything is controlled by the Party. The party can assign the home-grown candidate to a favorable constituency or place it with another weaker candidate to ensure that he or she is sure to win. If you want to remove a certain candidate that the Party does not like, you can pressure the local constituency to vote no confidence in that person, if not, you can outright vote that person out through the polls. negotiation round.
That is to say ‘if you want’ the Party can manipulate but does the Party really want to manipulate the election? Remember that the Party not only organizes elections but also participates in elections with most of the candidates being Party members, like taking the exam and acting as a judge. Of course, the Party wants the person it won. With such motives and conditions, how to avoid suspicion?
Unfair election
That’s not to mention the media apparatus, which plays an important role in propaganda for candidates, is also in the hands of the Party.
A basic principle of the media in any democratic country is that every time an election comes, they must ensure fair coverage of all candidates. For example, when reporting on the US Presidential election, it is necessary to ensure that both candidates have the same percentage of appearances.
Meanwhile, near the election day in Vietnam, the remaining nearly 900 candidates combined are not equal to the dense appearance in the media of President Nguyen Xuan Phuc, who ran for the National Assembly at Hoc Mon-Cu Chi constituency of Ho Chi Minh City.
Is that fair to the other candidates? Why only report on Mr. Phuc’s campaigning and voter contact activities, but ignore other candidates, especially candidates who also compete with Mr. Phuc in this constituency? If Mr. Phuc is the President of the country, it is necessary to report on his activities, then it must not be integrated into the messages to mobilize voters. Or rather, during the election campaign, if we do not inform other candidates, we will not propagate to Mr. Phuc.
Even the fact that Mr. Phuc, originally from Quang Nam-Da Nang, ran for office in Hoc Mon-Cu Chi also had something to worry about. In principle, a member of the National Assembly is the representative of the will and aspirations of voters in the area to run for office. In the United States, each senator represents the statewide electorate or each congressman represents approximately 500,000 people in the district, and on matters involving the interests of the home electorate, they must weigh carefully mentioned.
Did Mr. Phuc have time to live, work and work in Hoc Mon-Cu Chi? So how can you make sure he understands the wishes of the voters here to represent their interests? Granted, Mr. Phuc is among the candidates for the Central Committee to introduce the locality, but why not introduce him to where he can represent? While such cases are not uncommon, such as former Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung from Kien Giang who once ran for office in Hai Phong, doing so raises the question of whether certain locals do they really elect people to represent their local interests in the National Assembly?
According to the law, the people elect the National Assembly, the National Assembly members then elect key positions of the state apparatus on behalf of the people. That’s the theory, but everyone knows that the key positions have been decided in advance at the Party Congress and the National Assembly convenes later just to legitimize it.
But even so, it is still advisable to let the new National Assembly choose the leadership positions for the new term, and let the outgoing National Assembly do this, the people’s election to the National Assembly no longer makes sense to elect the new leadership to the country. Either way, the president, the president of the National Assembly, the prime minister, and the ministers of the new term have been elected while the people of the new National Assembly have not yet been elected. Thus, not only the representation but the feeling of mastering the country through the people’s vote is not always there, even if it’s just a feeling! It is true that the outgoing National Assembly is also elected by the people, but it is elected to work for only 5 years, otherwise, why is it necessary to elect a new National Assembly?
How to be lucid?
As the election day nears, the slogan is everywhere: “Choosing wisely, researching carefully to choose worthy and suitable delegates.” Going to the polls, especially in the agency that is said to be “the most powerful in the country” is of course to choose carefully what to remind?
However, what people consider is almost nothing but a few lines of biographies of the candidate posted on the wall of the neighborhood or at the polling station. How much does that help people know what talents, virtues, views, and action plans the candidates have?
People need to meet and contact candidates, hear if they are convincing, present the plan is possible, understand people’s thoughts and aspirations or not. However, what percentage of voters have the opportunity to attend both face-to-face and online meetings? And how many candidates have the opportunity to spread their message through the mainstream media other than special candidates like President Phuc, National Assembly Chairman Vuong Dinh Hue, Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh, and communist leader Nguyen Phu Trong?
That’s why it happened that on election day, many voters did not know who the candidate was. So how do you choose wisely?
I’ve heard many voters choose candidates according to the way that someone who ‘hates’ faces crosses them out, or reads a bio that sounds good, then keeps it. In such a sparsely informed context, candidates who are particularly heavily covered by the media have a clear advantage.
Although the US election is also somewhat emotional with voters voting according to partisan sentiment no matter how prominent the other candidate is – there are also independent voters who always research and consider carefully. their choice and it is this constituency that will contribute to deciding the election results wisely.
Here “quantity” should not be confused with “quality.” A lot of “quantity” does not necessarily mean “quality” is good, but sometimes because “quality” is not good, it is necessary to have “quantity” to compensate, like people who have no strength, so they need to refine their appearance.
That is not to say that in a controlled political system like Vietnam, there is no shortage of ways to force people to exercise their ‘rights’ to vote. The constituencies are always under pressure to report to their superiors about the number of elections, if the number is low, it will be considered irresponsible, so what does not happen in the US but happens in Vietnam is There will be ward and commune officials coming to each house to remind and even urge them to vote and vote enough. It’s not uncommon for a family of a dozen people to let one member vote for them all, but the election team even knows it, in order to have a good number to report to the top. In the end, every unit gets more than 99%, at worst, 97%.
The situation of voting for votes, cluster voting occurs so much is evidence that their people do not value their vote or their right to vote regardless of how the government propagates.
In the settlement, outside election
In fact, such an election in Vietnam is not unusual. Doesn’t the Constitution stipulate that the Party is the comprehensive leader of that society? So what’s the point of the election directive? If that principle is followed, there is no need for expensive elections, especially in the context of the epidemic, as long as the Party appoints the National Assembly for convenience.
However, doing so in a so-called “people-owned” regime would be difficult to talk about. It is the principle of “The Party leads, the people are the master” that has created the mechanism of “The Party nominate, the people elect.” Only when the people are truly mastered and empowered by the leader can the irony of the boss being led by the leader can be avoided.
As a result, with “The Party nominate, the people elect,” Vietnam has its very own way of voting: the election is combined with the arrangement, in other words in the arrangement, in addition to the election. The Fatherland Front arranges the list of candidates that the Party has chosen for the people to elect. And it’s not only in the general election but also in the Party’s constituency. Delegates to the Party Congress can only vote on a list with a pre-determined balance by the Central Committee. This approach also gives people or party members the right to be the owner, but to a very limited extent – sometimes with unexpected results of the Party as in the case of Mr. Dinh La Thang entering the Politburo in 2016 – but mainly it towards order and stability to serve the Party’s leadership.
Stability is stable, but it contains the hidden danger of separating the political elite from the people’s base no matter what the government is said to be ‘bloody with the people’. When someone becomes a member of the National Assembly depending more on the trust of the Party than the people, they will fear the Party more than the people. They won’t be like American congressmen who every time they cast a vote, have to consider what it will mean for their political future. As a result, they are far away from the people, lose their accountability to the people, and do not understand the thoughts and aspirations of the people. And when separated from the base of the people, the regime is very fragile.
* The article represents the opinion and writing style of the author, who holds a Master’s degree in International Relations at the University of California, San Diego, was an intern at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), and currently working in Washington DC, USA.
Thoibao.de (Translated)
