W.Minh Tuan

In the two years 2022-2023, 2023-2024, Vietnam has replaced 2 Presidents, and arrested and disciplined many provincial Party secretaries, city Party secretaries, many provincial presidents, many ministers, and many members of the politburo.

Of course that is not normal in a country in peacetime, with no war, no civil war, the war has ended for more than 40 years ago.

But perhaps it is true that Vietnam is in the process of strong transformation, in the process of finding the right direction, so it is natural to change many officials, change for the better.

In Japan, there was a period when a Prime Minister was replaced every year, and Ministers were constantly changed.

And now, in 2023 and 2024, Japanese politics is also experiencing many turmoil, no different from Vietnam today, because in Japan there are cases of corruption of political funds by Japanese government officials, and of officials of Japan’s ruling party LDP.

The embezzlement of political funds in Japan for more than 20 years is only now ripe to reveal, after Prime Minister Abe was assassinated and died in 2022. If Mr. Abe were still Prime Minister, perhaps cases of embezzlement of political funds in Japan cannot be exposed like they are now.

Therefore, in Vietnam, if there are many disturbances in cadre innovation and cadre discipline like today, it is natural, and should be seen as a good sign to do in the Party apparatus and state, Government.

Perhaps after more than 40 years of Doi Moi, Vietnam is only now truly seeing the challenges of Doi Moi.

Now is the right time for all ulcers in the process of self-renewal, in the process of self-improvement to be new, gradually revealed.

Perhaps now is the right time to reveal all the serious diseases of the country’s development process under the Party’s leadership.

Is it true that Vietnam’s process of training, fostering and appointing cadres is making serious mistakes, and now there is enough ripe time, enough pregnant of “9 months and 10 days” of  gestation period to reveal them?

Therefore, handling and disciplining officials who do wrong and do not have prohibited zones is a correct and necessary action.

But perhaps it is even more necessary, more important, more fundamental, to innovate the way of training, fostering, selecting, and appointing officials, so as not to be assigned the wrong officer, so as not to be misled, not to be just after being appointed,they was dismissed, arrested, and immediately tried.

But disciplining two Presidents for two years, is it time to definitively merge the two positions of General Secretary and President into one?

Vietnam’s leadership cadre apparatus from the central to local levels is currently too numerous, too cumbersome, with too many weak, unqualified and incompetent people still being appointed.

And there are many talented people who are dedicated to the country but are still not being used.

Therefore, Comrade General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong has said it very correctly, that both trying to avoid and not appointing bad and corrupt people to the Party and State apparatus, and not being perfectionists and demanding that everything be perfect, good, but also do not leave talented and virtuous people unappointed.

Doing so is not easy.

Doing so is not only the quality of the person doing the organizing work, but also the work of System Innovation and institutional innovation.

In the past, our ancestors had mainly two ways to select officers:

–By the exam, whoever passes the exam for Trang Nguyen, Bang Nhan, or Tham Hoa will be appointed as an official. Famously talented and honest mandarins in the history of our country were appointed through examinations such as Mr. Le Van Huu (1230-1322), Nguyen Binh Khiem (1491-1585), Chu Van An (1292 -1370), Ngo Si Lien (about 1400-1490), Le Qui Don (1726-1784),,,

–Through recommendation, introduction, no need to pass exams, if found to be a good person, he will be appointed immediately, like Mr. Dao Duy Tu (1572-1634), just a servant, herding buffalo in a rich man’s house, wealthy households in Dang Trong. When the rich man discovered that Mr. Dao Duy Tu had such leadership talent, this rich man introduced and recommended Mr. Dao Duy Tu to Lord Nguyen Phuc Nguyen, and King Nguyen after meeting, talking, and interviewing him, Dao Duy Tu, immediately appointed Mr. Dao Duy Tu as Noi Tan, with the title of Loc Khue Hau, to oversee military operations inside and outside, and to participate in state affairs, similar to the position of National Security Advisor for President in America today.

In today’s modern society, there is another way to select officials, which is through elections. Positions such as President, Prime Minister, Governors of states, provincial governors, and mayors in liberal democratic countries are all through free elections.

Vietnam has only one leadership party, so there are no free elections, so everything that selects officials, trains officials, and appoints officials is done by the Party only.

1 The Party’s work in cadre work also has the advantage that there is no fighting between political parties, so it ensures political unity.

But there are also bad things that we are currently experiencing in Vietnam, which is that it is difficult to select good and honest officials, but it is easy for the current situation to occur, where as soon as the appointment is just completed, then they were discovered there was a problem, they were dismissed, arrested, and immediately tried.

So how can we implement the instructions of General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong, which is to strictly fight corruption, have no prohibited areas, and not appoint officials of poor quality or wrongdoing to positions, and also not abandoning talented people, virtuous people, and integrity, is indeed difficult, not easy at all.

First, the two positions of General Secretary and President should be merged, not separated as currently.

The two newly appointed Presidents were immediately dismissed in 2022, 2023, 2024, showing that there is no longer a need for the President position to be separate, but should be merged into the position of General Secretary.

Comrade Nguyen Phu Trong has served as both General Secretary and President for one term (2018-2021), showing that everything is going smoothly and well, so what is the point of separating?

Our Party has discussed this issue many times, now we should come to a decisive conclusion, merging the two positions of General Secretary and President into one.

Second, in localities, the two positions of Secretary and Chairman should also be merged into one.

For many years now, the Party has been piloting this merger, and the results have been very good. We should now resolutely merge the two positions of Secretary and Chairman in localities.

Third, we should further streamline the Party and State apparatus. During the Ly Dynasty, there was a policy of no appointment, no promotion, no recruitment of additional officials every 15 years, to keep the state apparatus compact and streamlined.

Perhaps the State should have a 3-out, 1-in policy: every year with every 3 retirees, only 1 new person is recruited.

Just like that, after a few years, the party and state apparatus will be greatly reduced, thereby creating a basis for increasing wages.

There should be a regulation that there should be no more than 2 deputies. In Vietnam, we have too many deputies, making the chief bureaucratic, with little grasp of specific tasks, and unable to increase salaries because there are too many officials.

Fourth, we should reform salaries. When the party and state apparatus is compact, we should increase salaries for officials to preserve integrity.

Salaries of Tam Tru-3 lillars, at the royal court of Vietnam – General Secretary and President, Prime Minister, and Chairman of the National Assembly can completely reach 20,000 USD/month which is normal.

The salary of Ministers, Local Secretaries-Chairmen is about 16,000 USD/month which is OK.

The salary of a National Assembly deputy is about 10,000 USD/month.

Without ensure-integrity-Bao Liem’s high salary, it is difficult to appoint talented people, difficult to utilize talented people, difficult to retain talented people, and difficult to maintain the clean ethics of officials.///