Asia Times: Manh-sized job for Vietnam's new leader


	April 24, 2001	atimes.com

Southeast Asia

Manh-sized job for Vietnam's new leader
By Fred Thurlow

Vietnam's worst-kept secret was made official on Sunday with the formal announcement that 60-year-old Nong Duc Manh would take over the country's most powerful position as General-Secretary of the Communist Party.

Manh, a forestry engineer and head of the lawmaking National Assembly, was selected at a closed-door meeting of the party's central committee last Tuesday, but officials insisted the new boss would be chosen "democratically" during the four-day party congress that ended in the capital Hanoi on Sunday.

Manh, who has a reputation as clean and untainted, has led the National Assembly for nine years and is accepted as being more receptive to economic reforms than the man he has ousted, Le Kha Phieu.

Manh is from the Tay minority and becomes the first member of an ethnic minority to hold the top position in the Communist Party's 71-year history. His ethnic background is considered an important factor in easing tensions that erupted in February when thousands of hill tribe members protested in the central highlands over poverty, land grievances and government restrictions on the practice of their Protestant religion. The area was closed to outsiders.

Phieu has been dumped from both the Central Committee and the Politburo, which has been reduced in size from 18 to 15 under the direction of a new nine-member secretariat. For the first time, the Politburo will have only one military man, Defense Minister Pham Van Tra.

As well as Phieu, six of the previous 18 Politburo members were retired. Among them, Nguyen Duc Binh, 73, the head of the National Ho Chi Minh Political Academy, and Deputy Prime Minister Nguyen Manh Cam, 72, are leaving politics because of their age. Pham The Duyet, 64, the chairman of the Fatherland Front - which oversees all non-party organizations - is also said to have retired due to age, but has long been accused of accumulating an illicit fortune in real estate.

Nguyen Thi Xuan My, 60, is the only woman to have been elected to the Politburo. She had been responsible for directing anti-corruption efforts that have, so far, failed.

Also bowing out of politics are party elder statesmen Do Muoi, Vo Van Kiet and Le Duc Anh, who had stayed on as Politburo advisers after the 1997 leadership changes. Analysts have said their continued participation in decision-making was partly to blame for perceptions that Phieu was guilty of weak leadership.

Speaking after his appointment, Manh told the congress, "I am very moved and proud that I have won the trust of the party." He said it had opened "a new era" for Vietnam's development. "The future of our nation is very bright, but there will be not a small number of difficulties and challenges," he said. "The success of the reform process depends on our ability to grasp opportunities and overcome dangers. We have to heighten our patriotism and self-reliance but at the same time broaden our relations with our friends in the world."

He stressed the need to maintain stability and said it was an urgent requirement to accelerate the process of keeping the party "clean and strong". "We must fight against negativeness, especially bureaucracy, corruption and wastefulness," he said.

He called on the party to unite to take Vietnam out of poverty, hunger and underdevelopment and towards industrialization, while maintaining independence and building socialism.

The conservative Phieu strongly fought against his ouster and officials said party elders deliberately obscured their real intentions over the succession to complicate any last-ditch fightback.

One of the accusations long made against Phieu is that he abused a much enlarged military intelligence service to level baseless accusations against his rivals. Phieu did, however, save the career of one of his leading proteges, Defense Minister Tra.

Economic and social reforms that started 15 years ago to open Vietnam's economy and reduce the role of state enterprises slowed under Phieu's rule. Nevertheless, many people still believe Manh, who lacks military ties, will face resistance from communist officials who fear changes will loosen the party's grip on power.

Even Prime Minister Phan Van Khai, seen as one of the strongest advocates of reform, cautioned on the weekend that opening the country's economy too much could cause political unrest.

The Communist Party's 150-member central committee-designate chose Manh in a fresh vote on Tuesday after party elders persuaded him to reconsider his earlier rejection of the post. Manh had told delegates that the ethnic unrest in the central highlands made it imperative that he remain parliament speaker and be allowed to give more time to the country's minorities policy.

Biography
Nong Duc Manh was born into a family of the Tay ethnic minority group in Cuong Loi village, Na Ri District, Bac Can Province on September 11, 1940. Rumors have long circulated that he is the illegitimate son of revolutionary leader Ho Chi Minh. He was trained as a forestry engineer in the Soviet Union.

He was deputy director of the Provincial Forestry Service and director of the Construction Company of the Forestry Service in former Bac Thai province from August 1976 until January 1977. In the following seven months, Manh kept only the post of deputy director of the same forestry service. He was appointed director of the same forestry service betwen July 1977 and September 1980.

He became deputy chairman of the Bac Thai Provincial People's Committee in September 1980. In October 1983, he was appointed to the post of chairman of the Bac Thai Provincial People's Committee and he kept the same post for the three years.

Manh was elected through by-election to the post of deputy chairman of the National Assembly Nationalities Council at the eighth National Assembly. He was elected to the post of National Assembly chairman to the ninth National Assembly in 1992. He was re-elected to the same post by the National Assembly in 1997.

Manh became a member of the Communist Party of Vietnam on July 5, 1963. He became a member of the provincial Party executive committee for Bac Thai province in July 1977. He became a member for the standing board of the provincial party committee and then deputy secretary of the committee for Bac Thai Province between October 1983 and October 1986.

He was elected as secretary of the Bac Thai Party Committee in late 1986 and then alternate member to the Central Committee of the Communist Party. He became a full member of the Party Central Committee in March 1989. Between October 1989 and 1991, he was a member of the Party Central Committee and director of its Nationalities Commission.

He was elected member of the Political Bureau at the Seventh Party congress in 1991. He was re-elected as a member of the CPV Political Bureau at the Eighth National Party Congress in 1996.

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