W.Minh Tuan
On March 10, 1988, Chairman of the Council of Ministers Pham Hung died suddenly in Saigon, so Vice Chairman of the Council of Ministers Vo Van Kiet was made Acting Chairman of the Council of Ministers – that is, Acting Prime Minister. Comrade Do Muoi was also Vice Chairman of the Council of Ministers, but was not made Acting Chairman.
But Comrade Sau Kiet was only Acting for 3 months, then, from June 1988 to July 1991, the position of Chairman of the Council of Ministers – Prime Minister – was in the hands of Comrade Do Muoi.
That was the 6th Congress of Renovation in 1986.
At the 7th Congress, June 1991, General Secretary Nguyen Van Linh retired, and Comrade Do Muoi was elected General Secretary.
According to Comrade Muoi Huong, former Deputy Head of the Central Organizing Committee, at the 7th Congress, several delegates also recommended Comrade Vo Van Kiet for the position of General Secretary. Comrade Nguyen Van Linh said that then let there be 2 candidates for democracy.
As a result, Comrade Do Muoi had a few more votes than Comrade Sau Kiet, so Comrade Do Muoi was elected General Secretary, and Comrade Sau Kiet became Chairman of the Council of Ministers – Prime Minister.
This is the first time in our Party that there were 2 candidates for the General Secretary.
It is not known whether next year, 2026, the 14th Party Congress, there will be 2 candidates for the positions of General Secretary, President, and Prime Minister.
At the Congress on January 11, 2011, many people hoped that there would be 2 candidates for the position of General Secretary, but there were not. At that time, the party and the press discussed quite openly, openly, and democratically about the possibility of two candidates for the leadership positions of the party and the State.
Back to the story in 1991, comrade Sau Kiet was Chairman of the Council of Ministers from August 1991. In May 1992, the National Assembly decided to change the name of the Council of Ministers according to the old Soviet model, to the name of the Government, and to the name of the Prime Minister. Comrade Sau Dan-Sau Kiet was re-elected as Prime Minister.
Immediately after taking office as Chairman of the Council of Ministers-Prime Minister, comrade Sau Kiet cherished the idea of a “Great Wall” project, leaving the mark of Prime Minister Sau Kiet for future generations, which was the 500 KV high-voltage power transmission line project to transfer electricity from the North to the South, because the North had Hoa Binh Hydropower Plant, which had an excess of electricity, and the South was lacking electricity.
What a great idea, just like the Northern rear supporting the Southern front during the war.
The Minister of Energy at that time was Vu Ngoc Hai, a close disciple of comrade Sau Kiet, who actively turned the Prime Minister’s idea into a feasible project.
On April 5, 1992, the century-old 500 KV transmission line, 1,487 km long, was started, connecting electricity from Hoa Binh to Phu Lam-Sai Gon transformer station.
But right after the project started, the 500kV transmission line case also happened, and Minister Vu Ngoc Hai was arrested, and sentenced to 3 years in prison, for signing a paper for a private company to transfer capital in a roundabout way to buy 4,000 tons of steel to build a 500kV transmission line, earning a difference of 3.1 billion VND at that time, in 1992.
3.1 billion VND at that time, in 1992, was worth about 100 billion VND today, in 2025.
This was the first case in which a Minister was arrested, and sentenced to prison.
Who dared to arrest and try a Minister? And he was also a close disciple of Prime Minister Sau Kiet?
Wasn’t the arrest and trial of Minister Vu Ngoc Hai a slap in the face to Prime Minister Vo Van Kiet?
It must be someone with power over the Prime Minister. The only person with power over the Prime Minister in our country is the General Secretary.
That means General Secretary Do Muoi has directed to strictly handle this case, not allowing any bribery, not allowing anyone to interfere in the work of the law enforcement agencies. Isn’t that right?
Just like now, General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong dismissed and disciplined both Presidents and one National Assembly Chairman, and disciplined and expelled half of the Politburo members from the Politburo.
But is that 500 KV line really necessary for the country?
Even when considering whether to build this line or not, in 1991-1992, in our Party, there were many opinions that this line was not necessary, it only created prestige for the person doing it.
Because at that time, it was true that the South lacked electricity, the North had excess electricity. But if we look at the prospects of 5, 10, 15 years later, the economy of the South will also develop, the North will also develop, then the Hoa Binh hydropower plant in the North will not necessarily have enough electricity for the North, where will the electricity be transmitted to the South?
And just ten years later, the electricity problem in Vietnam is clear, that all regions must develop electricity, one region cannot have excess electricity to support another, in the style of “the rear supporting the front” like during the war. Now the North also has to build the Son La hydropower plant, but there is still a shortage of electricity.
So what is the purpose of that 500 KV line?
However, the small-scale farmer mindset at that time, in 1992, only saw the South lacking electricity, the North having excess electricity temporarily at that time, but did not see the prospect of the country developing after 10-15-20 years. And so the whole country’s efforts were mobilized to build the 500 KV line, with the spirit of “cutting the Truong Son mountain range to save the country”. After being released from prison, Mr. Vu Ngoc Hai calmly said that “If you don’t take care of the second circuit (from the South to the North), then in 2006-2007 the North will have to cut off a lot of electricity”.
That means in 2006-2007, the North will need the support of the South, and the 500 KV line, circuit 2, is for that purpose. So what is the 500 KV line, circuit 1, for transferring electricity to the South for? To commemorate comrade Sau Kiet and Vu Ngoc Hai, right?
In the world, no country has built a 500 KV high-voltage line that is over 1000 km long like our heroic Vietnam.
Unified electricity management, in the style of a centralized economy, is just the thinking of a socialist command economy, a command center for the whole country, which sounds good, but is actually very dangerous. Just one incident occurring in that unified electricity management system, the whole country is affected.
Comrade Sau Kiet is also no pushover.
He responded firmly to those who directed the arrest and imprisonment of Minister Vu Ngoc Hai by driving his car to Thanh Xuan prison, near Binh Da artillery village, Ha Dong, on May 28, the very next day, to visit former Minister Vu Ngoc Hai in prison, and to award the Medal right in prison to the former Minister for his achievements in building the 500 KV line.
A slap in the back at Comrade Do Muoi, the person who directed the arrest and imprisonment of Minister Vu Ngoc Hai?
Next, the story of Mr. Sau Phan, who was the Secretary of Hau Giang, then Vice Chairman of the National Assembly, and then Standing Member of the Secretariat.
At the 8th Congress in June 1996, there were rumors that Mr. Sau Phan would become Prime Minister, or even General Secretary. But someone above, heard that Sau Kiet, investigated some background of Sau Phan from the war, so Sau Phan retired straight away, lost everything, and was just a civilian deputy.
In the case of the brutal beating of comrade Le Kha Phieu at the 9th Congress in 2001, comrade Vo Van Kiet united with comrades Do and Le.
What a treacherous Cao Cao. The reason why the three advisors beat and overthrow General Secretary Le Kha Phieu was just a rumor, there was no solid evidence.
According to the rumors at that time, in 2001, the reason the three advisors decided to overthrow comrade Le Kha Phieu was because General Secretary Le Kha Phieu had established Team A10, under the direct command of comrade Pham Thanh Ngan, Director of the General Political Department, to coordinate intelligence information, and also to check the assets of high-ranking officials in the Party.
This is really dangerous, so the three advisors, with the support of many dignitaries in our Party, absolutely cannot let that festering group A10 exist.
If that group A10 digs out the assets of even the high-ranking officials, it will be a disaster.
Therefore, although many of them do not like each other, they all have a common enemy, group A10, so they must overthrow the person who gave birth to that festering group A10. After that group A10 was abolished along with the retirement of comrade Le Kha Phieu, the declaration of assets among our Party cadres was just a joke for fun.
Therefore, in this case, comrade Vo was quite closely united with comrades Do and Le.
That is roughly the rumor.
You should not believe too much in these rumors, because they could be spread by the “peaceful evolution” group.
In 1996-1997, there was the oil and gas scandal. At that time, many newspapers had documents about scandals in the oil and gas industry, and there were also many rumors that Prime Minister Vo Van Kiet was behind the protection of the oil and gas industry.
After retiring, comrade Sau Kiet had many opinions that were considered innovative, bold, calling for harmony, reconciliation,,,.
However, in 1972-1973, after the Paris Agreement, comrade Sau Kiet, as Secretary of Zone 9, directed not to implement the Agreement, to use force to liberate the South.
Then “the South was liberated” in 1975, the subsidy mechanism, the abolition of the market, the loss of democracy, stagnation, corruption,,,,, gradually replaced the initial atmosphere of victory. Then, when he retired, comrade Sau Kiet had to repeatedly lament about national harmony, about “breaking down the fence”, about “patriotism not being the monopoly of anyone”, about “having to return to the market economy”,,,.
Both Comrade Sau Kiet, Comrade Do Muoi, and our entire Party, when conducting the heroic war “against American imperialism”, did not see that when the last American soldiers left the South, the Northern friend hurriedly occupied the entire Paracel Islands in 1974, and helped and incited Pol Pot to wage war on the southern border, after which the Great Friend also hastily prepared for the war “To teach Vietnam a lesson” – that is, the 1979-1989 border war.
The “American imperialists” entered the South, but did not occupy any of our land. They only wanted to replace an undemocratic communist regime with a free democratic regime. Yet an entire nation rushed into the war to “fight the Americans to leave, fight the puppets to fall”, only to find that the country did not lose any land to the “Americans-Puppets”, but instead lost the entire Paracel Islands to the Northern friend, then had to fight another war with Pol Pot, and the Northern border war.
And the danger of losing more seas and islands to the great Northern friend is still growing. And the Vietnamese people The heroic leader, who defeated France, the US, and Pol Pot, is now very gentle in the face of the arrests, killings, and robberies of fishermen, the ban on fishing, the ban on foreign companies exploiting the sea, the making of the 9-dash cow tongue map, and the practice of occupying islands, etc. of the Great Friend.
The story of Vo Van Kiet-Do Muoi mentioned above shows that the solidarity in our party is not that formidable.
It is said that comrade Do Muoi, before the Congress on January 11, 2011, although he was 93 years old, sent a letter to the Party Congress, co-signed with former General Secretary Le Kha Phieu, former Prime Minister Phan Van Khai, etc., recommending comrade Nguyen Minh Triet to be the General Secretary.
However, no one listened to that sincere advice. As a result, comrade Nguyen Phu Trong became the General Secretary. In a country with a culture of respecting the elderly like ours, with the atmosphere of the Dien Hong Conference, which aroused the cry of “Kill the Mongols” in the past, now, when the seniors and elders have opinions, but the younger generation does not listen, it means that the fate of the country has come to a change.///