Vietnam PM withdraws from contest for Communist Party chief

“I very much welcome comrade Nguyen Tan Dung and some other comrades in the politburo who voluntarily withdrew from being nominees to gather credit for comrade Nguyen Phu Trong”, Kim said.

Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung had mounted a last-minute challenge during the ongoing party congress after being excluded from an official list of candidates for members of a key party panel.

Some experts and diplomats familiar with the arcane inner workings of the Communist Party believe Dung’s popularity and cultivation of broad party backing means he could be put back in contention, should he choose to fight.

Mr Dung faces a number of hurdles to gain the nomination for General Secretary, including garnering support from the new central committee, said Mr Hung.

Experts say Dung is an ambitious, decisive figure and his exclusion from leadership nominations suggests concerns among the party’s old guard that he could test Vietnam’s traditional consensus leadership model.

The congress, which is conducted behind closed doors, will decide who will be Vietnam’s key leaders for the next five years.

This year, the rivalry between Dung and Trong has gone down to the wire into the party congress that began last Thursday and will end this Thursday. Had he continued his challenge, he could have become part of the Central Committee, and subsequently could have been in the race for party general secretary.

He has also gained popularity domestically with strong anti-China rhetoric when it comes to disputed territory in the South China Sea. Under party rules, Dung’s withdrawal of his nomination – a technical formality – had to be rejected by party congress delegates for him to remain a viable candidate for general secretary, one of the most influential roles in the country.

Later this week, the congress will elect the all-powerful Politburo, which handles the day-to-day governance of Vietnam.

By not running for the committee, he effectively ruled out a power bid because he would need to be a committee member to be elected to its ruling politburo and rise to the top post. Mr Dung has served the maximum two terms allowed and was looking to shift to General Secretary, one of the most influential posts in Vietnam.

His economic reforms in the country have helped Vietnam attract a flood of foreign investment and helped triple the per capita GDP to $2,100 over the past 10 years. Three others will be chosen, in respective order of seniority: the prime minister, the president and the chairman of the national assembly.

Dung, who rose through the ranks of the party and held senior positions, is a two-term prime minister.

Dung, 66, was until recently widely tipped by diplomats and analysts to become the next party chief, which could have strengthened the hand of his progressive faction. But like its ideological ally China, the government believes in quasi-free market economy alongside a strictly controlled society that places several restrictions on its 93 million people.