Obviously this is not a democratic election, but it is currently an extremely competitive race that will have global implications. The Communisty Part of Vietnam (CPV) party congress is meeting on
Wednesday, January 20th to elect new party leaders.
First a basic rundown of the Communist party structure. In typical Leninist fashion, it is a top-down, hierarchical organization in which the:
National Congress (1,377 members) elects the
Central Committee (175 members) elects the
Politburo (16 members, though this varies), which is led by the
General Secretary (1 guy, who is generally the leader of the party)
IMPORTANT: In theory, the National Congress elects the Central Committee, which elects the Politburo, which chooses the country's top political leadership, but in practice party elders in the Politburo work it out themselves and direct their supporters at the lower levels to vote the way they are supposed to. You can read more about it
here:
Vietnam also has a Prime Minister and President, which are official state positions of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. This theoretically is a ruling coalition of the CPV and other political parties but of course the CPV has de facto total control of the political process. The Prime Minister is usually the second best powerful political figure in Vietnam after the General Secretary.
Vietnam's political system is very similar to China's, but the politics are noticeably different. Many Chinese politicians grew up during the Mao years and seem permanently scarred by the political turmoil of those times. Thus the CCP tends to settle internecine party drama behind quiet doors and present a unified front of party cohesion to the outside world. Vietnam's politics are far more fractious and public squabbles are very commonplace. Inter-party tensions have intensified in recent years between pro-China and pro-US factions. Right now it is a struggle for power within the party between these two guys:
Nguyễn Phú Trọng
Current General Secretary. An old and crusty conservative apparatchik who favors close relations to China and is cautious about market-based reform. His hand has been severely weakened in the past few years due to worsening relations with China, and between joining TPP and his meeting with Obama in July 2015 it is clear that he has been forced to move in the pro-US, pro-reform direction by this guy....
Nguyễn Tấn Dũng
Current Prime Minister. The most "charismatic" politician in Vietnam and reminiscent of populist reformers across time and history. Supporters laud his pro-US bent and emphasis on reforming the inefficient state-owned economy. Critics point out his penchant for nepotism, allegations of bribery/corruption, and disastrous mismanagement of state-owned companies that he has been in charge of. He is also purportedly unpopular with the other leaders of the party for his political opportunism.
So what's going to happen Wednesday? Nobody knows! Since both Trọng and Dũng are over 65, they are supposed to retire and let younger politicians take the reigns of the party. However Dũng has been campaigning the Party to carve out an exception and let him succeed Trọng as the General Secretary, arguing that only he has the cachet to make the political and economic reforms needed for the country.
Unfortunately for him, Trọng is not having any of this. He is attempting to exert his considerable political clout (the 16-member Politburo as it stands has more old front, Communist conservatives than reformers) to either force Dũng to retire, bring his own guy in, or even stay in power himself just to ensure Dũng doesn't become Secretary.
However while Dũng has little support from within the Politburo, he has a strong base within the 175-member Central Committee and has already withstood a move by Trọng to marginalize his power (see
here for more details) and another blatant push to marginalize Dũng is probably going to end badly for Trọng.
So there are a bunch of possible outcomes for Wednesday's congress: Dũng can become General Secretary, Trọng can remain General Secretary, one of their political puppets...err, surrogates could become General Secretary, or some compromise candidate could be found.
The magnitude of the ideological differences between the two factions
may be overstated just a little - after all, 8 members of the supposedly super-conservative Politburo visited the U.S. over the past year, suggesting that the trajectory of Vietnamese foreign policy is swerving rapidly towards the U.S. Vietnamese people
love the U.S.,
LOVE capitalism, and
hate China, so no politician these days wants to be seen as a Chinese lackey.
But whoever wins the political struggle between Dũng and Trọng is going to be widely interpreted as an indicator of how much Vietnam is tilting in the American direction to wean itself off of its strategic and economic dependence on China.
Two brochachos
Of note, reform of the political system does not seem to be a priority for the party leadership, so don't expect that anytime soon. Also, in a somewhat contradictory note to how I've written this, Carl Thayer
is good on why you shouldn't think of Vietnam's foreign policy as just a binary struggle between pro-China and pro-US factions.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/19/world/asia/vietnam-communist-party-congress.htmlhttp://www.economist.com/news/asia/21688438-country-hurry-its-leaders-less-so-changing-guardbut-then-again-perhaps-not
