Vietnam’s ruling Communist party convenes to select new leaders

Article 4 of Vietnam’s constitution formally gives the Communist Party the right to rule the country, stating that it is, “the Vanguard of the working class, concurrently the vanguard of the laboring people and Vietnamese nation, faithfully representing the interests of the working class, laboring people and entire nation, and acting upon the Marxist-Leninist doctrine and Ho Chi Minh Thought, is the force leading the State and society”.

The Communist Party is constitutionally empowered to run the country.

Vietnam’s next leader will play a key role in deciding the pace of economic reforms, which have brought a flood of foreign investment, a fledgling stock market and helped triple per capita GDP to £1,300 over the past decade years.

At the congress, the country’s top three jobs – Party General Secretary, President and Prime Minister – are up for grabs, with all incumbents technically due to retire. The general secretary is the de facto No. 1 leader of the country, although Vietnam professes a collective leadership through a Politburo that handles day to day affairs, and a larger Central Committee that meets twice a year to decide policy. It will have to balance between China, its closest ally and trading partner and the United States which the elites consider an important counterweight against the increasing grasp of the Chinese in the region. Beijing has been expanding its territorial claimss in the South China Sea, but Vietnam has pushed back against them.

“The path of socialism is still suitable to the reality in Vietnam”, Trong, who is seen as closer to Beijing, said as he opened the meeting Thursday.

“With Dung, the country will move much further and much more quickly”, on issues like market reforms, free trade deals, and security ties with the US, Thayer said.

Some 150 journalists from more than 20 foreign media organisations will be covering the Vietnam’s 12th National Party Congress in Hanoi from January 20-28.

The congress elected 17 members of the Presidium of the 12th National Party Congress, including 16 CPVCC’s Politburo members as well as Ha Thi Khiet, secretary of the CPVCC and head of the CPVCCs Commission for Mass Mobilization.

Dung was more outspoken in his criticism of China’s assertiveness in the South China Sea, said Murray Hiebert, a Southeast Asian expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. No media are allowed to cover the proceedings, and in any case Vietnamese media are controlled by the government.

But the two camps are believed to have reached a compromise under which Trong would stay as general secretary for two years instead of five, and a Dung supporter would become the chairman of the National Assembly.

Dung took on the pro-Trong Politburo several times, coming out on top. “There is no age limit for this position”, Le Quang Vinh, Deputy Chief of the Party Central Committee’s Office, told news website Zing Monday. In 2012, the Central Committee rejected a Politburo vote that would have cast blame on him for mismanaging the economy.

And despite their differing styles, Hiebert said both men recognize that the party’s survival “depends on continuing economic reform and global economic diversification”.

Many streets were closed off and decorated with flowers and red banners proclaiming “Long Live the Glorious Communist Party of Vietnam!”