Vietnam’s New Parliament: What do voters want?

General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong casts his vote on May 23, 2021, in Hanoi

Confident as a prophet of great deception, on the morning of May 23, right after opening the National Assembly election performance, General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong boasted to himself: “I believe, with the important meaning of this election, our country will enter a new stage of development, getting better and better, meeting the requirements and aspirations of voters and people nationwide.”

How much tax money is spent, how much is the value of the country’s resources being spent on the floating government machinery, the propaganda system, the whole political system that drives people to vote which is formal certainly in terms of form and election. The election was a great success with dreamlike numbers. But with the trust of the people is another matter.

What people hope after being forced to elect the party’s selected people?

The “happy day” in the midst of the COVID season has passed, more than 99% of voters nationwide have sacrificed their bodies to gather legally to elect the National Assembly and People’s Council which have been selected by the Party. “This selection has been passed through a very strict process” (1)… In turn, the National Assembly chosen by the Party will continue to re-elect a new government that was elected by the old National Assembly. before the end of its term.

The democratic drama lurks, as confused as a stuttering record. It’s funny that many Party candidates who were selected after meeting the good criteria but had to withdraw because of their adult affairs like a deputy head of the Central Commission for Propaganda and Education, or because of corruption by raising the prices of medical equipment such as the director of Bach Mai Hospital, et.

The performance was also tragic when the members of parliament who had a strong voice in the previous term, such as Luu Binh Nhuong, were not recommended because of their age; young delegates from Gia Rai ethnic group Ksor Khoat was not introduced without knowing the reason. Lawyer Truong Trong Nghia, a responsible and visionary representative of a politician, had to run for office without being introduced. Fortunately, with a rich political history, he was not arrested like other self-nominated candidates, but the probability of winning the election is fraught with risks.

In contrast, Mr. Nguyen Thien Nhan, “a man who speaks with a northern accent but does not cheat people,” was re-elected despite his advanced age and during the last term only made a mark in Saigon by naming his father’s name. He still has debts to people in Thu Thiem and Loc Hung. Chief Justice Nguyen Hoa Binh, famous for his “Council of knives and cutting boards“, entered the Politburo and continued to run for the National Assembly. “Dr. propeller” Bui Van Cuong paved the way for public opinion to bring two lecturers from Ton Duc Thang University, journalist Truong Chau Huu Danh and the Bao Sach (Clean newspaper) group into the furnace to become Secretary-General of the old National Assembly and run for office in the new term.

With only so many honest voices lost and so many faces selected to be candidates (of course, they will be elected 99% according to the right process), do voters and people have any expectations and hopes for the new National Assembly and government?

The State of the Party

Certainly, there are voters who not only expect but also actively set up projects and invest in relations with the new government to “conquer” new lands. The wave of Hanoi and Thanh Hoa will return to Can Tho, speeding up the third southern migration. The once famous Nam Roi pomelo has gone into oblivion to give way to an industrial park project. A heroic Song Hau farm has disintegrated with the wave of investment, Mrs. Ba Suong nearly went to prison. That is the old step, what lands and specialties will continue to be sacrificed for the “new step“?

After Thu Thiem, Cu Chi, Nha Be, Can Gio, Thu Duc, there will be more real estate giants in the backyard. While the government and propaganda machine shouted to bring down the land fever, Long Hau, Phuoc Lai, Phuoc Ly of Can Giuoc, Long An, then Tan Lan, Tan Tap, and maybe even My Le with the rice variety Nang Thom Cho Dao, the sound of “Gao Can Duoc, Dong Nai country” will sooner or later be concreted.

But that joy and expectation are only found in about 1% of voters who are friendly business people. “A new development phase” according to Mr. Trong’s prediction will happen with the two-way puller as soon as possible: the list of Vietnamese billionaires will have a few new faces, in return for raising the number of the people who lost their land. Many people will become impoverished faster with the increase of urban projects and golf courses. The country’s natural resources and environment will be exhausted.

The youth from western provinces will continue to dream of “going to Binh Duong” to work as hired laborers. Western girls will continue to marry Korean, Taiwanese, and Chinese husbands. Poor people in Thanh Hoa and Nghe AN will borrow money to invest for their children and grandchildren to go abroad to England, France, and Russia to do hard labor. The economic talent of the elite world, of the Party government that chooses the people, is not to create new cakes and new values ​​for the country and the people, but only knows how to use the power of the State to rob the land from local people and sell the national resources cheaply.

Even the precious property that the people created the State did not treasure and preserve. Vietnamese agricultural products kept wandering in the arms of Chinese golden friends and exhausted farmers with the sad chorus of the devaluation of the season. Out of the “crimson pepper” now comes dragon fruit, durian, and citrus mango. Every harvest that should have been a happy season had to be rescued as a calamity.

Most recently, the most recent news of the current Government period, the ST 25 rice variety, which was honored as the best in the world, was robbed of its title abroad. The government also left the owner Ho Quang Cua alone to deal with it. Engineer Cua was helpless in the face of a complicated market that sold the ST 25 brand to the State. Nearly a month has passed, “The State by the people, for the people, creating a new progressive country” is still silent before this call for help. The candidate’s action program, the Minister of Industry and Trade has no words for the best rice in the world.

What can the people rely on for a provincial official who allowed Duong Nhue to lend money at very high-interest rates, coerce businesses, and literally eat money on corpses during his term? What hope can the people have in the government’s machinery, when the incident is broken, the head of the province will be appointed as the Minister of Industry and Trade?

Return rights to the people!

Mr. Nguyen Phu Trong sprayed the press with a beautiful wish, “I hope that all legislators of the 15th National Assembly and People’s Councils at all levels this term will wholeheartedly serve the country, the people, the Fatherland, serve the people, fulfill their responsibilities and lofty obligations in accordance with the Constitution and the law.”

It is also the common desire of all people, but a dream is something that people do not have to spend money to buy. Being a leader cannot sit in an “air-conditioned room” declaring a dream, but must map out a path and a way to achieve that dream.

With the theoretical level of Marx, he once understood and acknowledged that the socialist road is a road with no destination. The authoritarian model of the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe has collapsed. China’s eastern model of totalitarianism also only creates wealth for the ruling class.

For decades, his effort and mind have devoted all to maintaining the totalitarian regime, firmly holding the Party’s leadership monopoly over the state and the political system, suffocating all civil liberties of the people. The furnace he set up was to eliminate political opponents, maintain personal power. Honestly, his wish is just that much. The delegates chosen by him are Nguyen Hong Dien, Nguyen Hoa Binh who are incompetent, have no conscience, and have never served the people.

His wish is not new, more than seven decades ago, his “old father” gave the Vietnamese people a cake to look like a country “10 times bigger and more beautiful” to drag the nation into the fierce internal war, on the day of reunification, they lost the Hoang Sa (Paracels) and part of the Truong Sa (Spratlys), the people lost their freedom. His era was even worse, depending on China to lose the country’s sovereignty, land and forests were sold wholesale and retail to China.

Under the oppressive machine from ideology to the behavior of propaganda and police, Vietnamese people still protest, disgruntle, and expose that false demagogue. Not only expressed in attitude, but also in literature. The late writer Trang The Hy wrote Going Home Before the Rains, Tran Huy Quang wrote Linh Nghiem sarcastic truthfully but cynically the false promises of small people who want to be saints.

Wanting the National Assembly to truly “for the country, for the people, to serve the Fatherland, to serve the people” is not difficult at all. Let’s amend the Constitution to remove the two biggest woes of the nation, the Party’s monopoly on leadership and the state’s monopoly on land ownership. At that time, there was no need to burn the furnace, because state officials cannot corrupt from land. Let’s pay the people the bad debt of the past decades is the Law of Protests and the Law on the right to form associations.

The sunshade does not block the sun. No matter how expensive it is to paint, no matter how expensive it is to plunder the people’s money to make a fancy screen for the election drama, a National Assembly with over 90% of its members selected by the Party for candidates, and the remaining 10% who were approved by the Party to run for election continues to be rubber-stamped and must pass the laws decided by the Politburo.

Power, oppression, and deceitful demagoguery can cause fear, but cannot quell the disdain of the people.

Certainly, Mr. Trong was very afraid of what the people wanted, so he overshadowed those who expressed that righteous desire as much as the concept of “conspiracy for peaceful evolution,” “self-transformation, self-transformation,” and “enemy forces” and according to the principle of the dictatorship of the proletariat is violent repression by the police and prisons.

Thoibao.de (Translated)

Source: https://www.rfa.org/vietnamese/news/blog/new-national-assembly-what-do-people-want-05252021112728.html

Kasse animation 7.8.2023