Party Congress: The paradox of “the party gets together – people spend money”?

The 13th Plenary, Session XII of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Vietnam, meeting from October 5 to 10, 2020, begins to discuss the issues that are considered important in terms of personnel and begins to introduce personnel.

However, there are opinions of foreign people on the question of how and reasonable the ‘budget’ for the meeting and meeting preparation.

On Thursday, October 8, the website of the Communist Party of Vietnam reported that the Central Committee had a meeting on the introduction of personnel for the XIII period:

“On October 8, the Central Committee entered the fourth business day of the XIII Conference, XII Session.

“The Party Central Committee held a meeting on the introduction of the XIII Central Committee staff, the XIII Central Inspection Committee staff and the Minister. Comrade Nguyen Phu Trong, Secretary General, the President replaced The Politburo chairs and directs the program of the conference.

“Comrade Pham Minh Chinh, Member of the Politburo, Secretary of the Party Central Committee, Head of the Central Organizing Committee, on behalf of the Politburo, read the Politburo Proposal on the consultation and presentation of the staff of the Minister. Science and Technology, Minister of Health; on the personal recommendation of Session XIII of the Central Committee; on the recommendation of the staff of Session XIII of the Central Inspection Committee “.

Also on Thursday, the Thanh Nien online newspaper gave more details about the conference that is scheduled to close on 10/10:

“As of August 20, there were 116/116 localities, agencies and units that presented 119 members of the Central Committee of the XII period (both officers and alternates) for the re-election of the XIII Central Committee, and 107 times First, joining the Official Members , with a total of 226 people, and 44 people to the alternate members of the XIII Session of the Central Committee.

Secretary-General and President of State Nguyen Phu Trong said that at this conference, the Politburo presented to the Central the results of the introduction of personnel from all levels of Party committees, party organizations, agencies and units directly under the Central government. and Opinions of the Politburo on the personnel presented At the same time, the Politburo reports to the Central Executive Committee on the personnel participating in the XIII Central Inspection Committee (including the re-election list and nomination first book of participation).

He suggested that the Central Committee members increase their sense of responsibility, adhere to the Human Resources Orientation and Process, carefully study the list of staff recommendations of the Central Executive Committee and the Central Inspection Committee. XIII to discuss, consider and select carefully before recording the votes, “reported the newspaper is the Vietnam Youth Union forum.

Commenting on the 13th Central Conference and especially the table contents and introducing the senior staff at this conference, the Round Table guests on Thursday 10/8 told BBC News Vietnamese their views.

From Taipei, Taiwan, lawyer Trinh Huu Long, editor-in-chief of the Journalism Act, told the BBC that he was very interested in the XIII Central Conference, as well as the XIII Party Congress in various aspects, said:

“One is that all the people who attend General Conference enjoy their salary with taxpayers’ money, the chair they sit in, the plane ticket they fly to, the glass of water they drink, the food they eat. They eat everywhere.The conference was held with taxpayers’ money, not anywhere else, their party fees were very small.

“And all the funds for all the general conferences, then all the local conferences, the local congresses and the National Congress that will take place early next year, it’s all from People’s Taxes. People pay for all those events.

Second, the mechanism that they call party personnel is a completely closed mechanism, only party members can participate.

“So here is a very worrying thing, all people pay money for party activities and go to meetings, but only party members can participate in their personnel process. That’s. which in my opinion is completely unreasonable, there is nothing plausible here.

“The third point that interests me is that their staffing mechanism is an extremely paradoxical mechanism. How can people make their source of recruitment abundant and of high quality, quantity and quality? Quantity.

“Then in terms of the number of them limited to just 4 million party members, they completely ignore the remaining tens of millions, which is completely unreasonable …”

From Leeds, UK, freelance journalist Song Chi commented:

“People just stood out as paying taxes and looked at them, they don’t know who it was. So it was a lot of fun, for example Mr. Nguyen Thien Nhan, Party secretary from Ho Chi Minh City, said a prayer. “The Party Congress is also the People’s Congress.”

“No, I don’t think so, it is not a People’s Congress at all, it’s because the people have absolutely no power, the people have no right to know anything.

“For example, who is he, what are his personalities like, what are his abilities, his personal life and his health … people don’t know anything about anything, so here …

“… They want to stay in their hometown, they can’t participate in it, while voting is also a formal vote, and Vietnamese cannot participate. What to expect

“So in terms of party personnel, if they are interested, then it’s just to discuss the sidewalk that one is up, the other is down, will it continue to be three or four or will it go back to the ‘Four pillar’ etc …

“But I see that they also care if the party changes or not, or if the line continues to be one-party like this, if the party has a bit of democratization or not, that’s it. people care. “

Commenting on the issue of the budget for the activities of the Communist Party of Vietnam, including the organization of central conferences, congresses at all levels, etc., Ms. Song Chi continued:

“The next point that interests me is the history of money, obviously people see such a great meeting and the organization is very expensive, even the province of Gia Lai spends 1,200 million VND to sew the delegates. , donating smart watches, metal pens to delegates, then Tuyen Quang province spent 2.2 billion VND to buy pairs, Quang Binh province spent money on clothes, then I asked where that money Is that so?

“Even though it is necessary to have leather bags and clothes that are Japanese buttons, imported fabrics and foreign keys, etc … so where did that money come from, I suppose that in addition to the taxpayer’s money, Know that there are businesses, state corporations to which they contribute.

“So the question is, once these big corporations contribute, will they dominate, will they manipulate, will they have any influence on the politics of the ruling party or not? It is also a question that no one has asked.

“So, in my opinion, the problem is not just taxpayers’ money, but also corporations, and spending and spending like that, while an entire nation has so many hungry people, tens of millions. If you are still running, what is it like? “

Also from Hanoi, just before the panel discussion, Dr. Ha Hoang Hop, Visiting Principal Investigator at the Institute for Southeast Asian Studies (Iseas – Singapore) shared his remarks on the Central Conference with the BBC. 13 is happening.

He said: “The results of the XIII Central Conference have two parts, one part about the document and the other about the personnel of the XIII Central Committee.

“The personnel section, Conference 13 reviewed the list of 119 members of the XII Central Committee who could be re-elected and 108 who could be candidates for the XIII Central Committee, for the first time.

“In the document, there is no change in forms, ideas, politics.

And it is said that the XIII Congress will be delayed until the end of February, the beginning of March 2021; there are a few months left for the CPV to agree on key personnel, for example how many people over 65 can do so. Next and in what position? “