Vietnam Communist

pick new leaders

Vietnam Communists pick new leaders

April/22/2001

HANOI, Vietnam, AP

Vietnam's ruling Communist Party officially picked a new leadership Saturday, with a moderate ethnic minority member expected to replace an aging conservative in the country's top post.

The expected choice of Nong Duc Manh, 60, as party general secretary was all but sealed last week when the party's new Central Committee voted to oust Le Kha Phieu, 69.

Party officials were voting Saturday afternoon and the new leadership would be announced Sunday, a government press official said.

Economic reforms have bogged down under the direction of Phieu, who fought a bruising battle to retain his post.

Manh, who has been speaker of the lawmaking National Assembly for the past nine years, would be the first minority member to head Vietnam.

"We want to rejuvenate the leadership," former Prime Minister Vo Van Kiet, a senior party adviser, said Saturday. "The new situation requires a leader who can respond to new requirements."

Phieu has been heavily criticized over allegations of ineffective leadership and charges he used military intelligence to spy on rival Politburo members.

Kiet would not comment directly on the accusations, but indicated Phieu had lost the confidence of much of the Communist Party.

"In what has been achieved, the party general secretary has played a leading role. But at the same time, the shortcomings" are also his doing, Kiet said. "Any party secretary who separates himself from the party Central Committee cannot work" effectively, he added.

Manh has a reputation as being a savvy politician who is effective in seeking consensus — a skill that could be put to good use since Vietnam remains divided on its political and economic path.

While many officials believe reforms need to be accelerated to keep Vietnam from falling even further behind its Asian neighbors economically, many also fear the Communist Party could lose its grip on power if reforms go too far.

As head of the National Assembly, Manh has slowly changed the lawmaking body from largely a rubber-stamp for the Communist Party to a modest forum for policy issues.

In Vietnam's secretive government, the National Assembly is seen as the only semitransparent public body.

The selection of Manh, an ethnic Tay who is widely rumored to be the illegitimate son of revolutionary leader Ho Chi Minh, is also expected to help ease ethnic tensions that flared in February with anti government protests in the Central Highlands over land grievances, poverty and religious repression.

Public protests of any kind are extremely rare in tightly controlled Vietnam.

Addressing a national party congress Saturday, Cu Hoa Van, head of the National Assembly's nationalities council, acknowledged government policies on ethnic minorities remain inadequate.

"Living conditions of ethnic minority people remain the most difficult and poorest," he said.

Le Quang Vinh, director of the government's Religion Commission, also acknowledged shortcomings in religious policies.

"We don't say that our religious policy is perfect, but we will make amendments to adapt to the new situation," he said.

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