Vietnam’s growing economy is one of a very few recent global
success stories. With a population of 95 million people and with GDP approaching
US$8000 per capita (in PPP terms), Vietnam is home to millions of private
businesses and has become an attractive destination for foreign direct
investment. The lives of millions of Vietnamese have improved, poverty has fallen
and by 2035 more than half of Vietnam’s population are projected to join the ranks of the global middle
class.
Deeply integrated into the global economy, Vietnam is
party to many new generation free trade agreements, including with the EU, Japan and the regional CPTPP. Unusually for a
country with such a large population, Vietnam ranks fifth among the most open
economies in the world, with total trade more than double the size of GDP.
But political reform in the country is uncertain and
less visible. Vietnam remains an authoritarian regime with a single ruling
party. The party controls the
elective body, the government, the judiciary, the media and the surrounding
mass organisations. For each the party selects, trains and rotates its
apparatchiks to ensure their loyalty to the party.
Economic growth, improving government efficiency and facilitating citizen
participation can liberalise a society. In Vietnam, a process of democratisation [A1] within the party and society is going on alongside
economic liberalisation. The redesign of elective bodies is one of such
political reforms demonstrating the party’s increasing efforts to include the people’s
voice in political life and to ensure bureaucratic oversight. The party is now experimenting
with these changes to see if it is possible to create a functioning
representative democracy within a single-party system. If successful, Vietnam
will be a rare example of democracy without political pluralism or a multi-party
system.
Formally, free elections, a free media, the freedom to
associate and the right to express and to demonstrate are granted by Vietnam’s constitution.
But while elections in Vietnam have changed little since 1946, elective bodies
—particularly the National Assembly (NA) — have been transformed from simply
rubber stamp institutions into ones that discuss policy and provide oversight.
Although 92 per cent of NA members belongs to the party and 75 per cent serve
on a part-time basis, Vietnam’s NA still holds controversial debates, takes the
lead in the legislative process and may reject proposals presented by the government,
as it did recently with a high-speed railway project.
Live broadcasting of NA question sessions is common
practice. Votes of confidence have been introduced to measure the degree of
trust that NA members have in the country’s political leadership. Low
confidence in a leader may pressure them to improve their performance. If they
do not, the party may sanction internal measures forcing them to resign.
At the local level, the party
is experimenting with a new government model — the urban government model. It is
intended to keep people councils at only the city or provincial level. Elective
bodies at district and ward levels will be dissolved. This controversial policy
was piloted in 2008 and revoked in 2013. As waves of urbanisation intensify,
cities are calling for new government models to fit their urban needs. Ho Chi Minh City, Hanoi and Danang may
dissolve the councils at lower levels to reduce the size of the public sector
and to simplify bureaucracy.
Local councils are
inefficient and redundant. 300,000
deputies are serving in 700 districts and 12,000 wards throughout the country. [A2] Three
out of four council members work part-time. They do not have time for
representative duties and do not appear in council meetings. The council
approves the decisions of the local party. For these reasons, dissolution may
save money, time and create momentum for imposing accountability on local
leaders.[A3]
The absence of free
elections and a meaningful separation of power between the legislative and
executive has led to the inefficiency of local councils. Instead of
dissolution, critics argue that the government should reinvent local councils
to make them more suitable for representing constituencies and supervising the
local government. It is possible to reduce the number of deputies
substantially, but deputies must then devote more time to their representative
work. At the commune or ward level, local autonomy should be reinstalled. A
representative body has always existed in Vietnam’s villages.
The examples of parliamentary
reform and dissolution of people councils at the local level demonstrate the
ability of Vietnam’s government to adjust and redesign. But the outcomes and
sustainability of such experiments are uncertain. There is a possibility that a
rule-of-law society may emerge in Vietnam. Driving forces for this
transformation include the pressure on the party to reinvent itself and Vietnam’s
international commitments which will continue to require deeper institutional
reform in terms of good governance and transparency. The Vietnamese people are also becoming more aware of their political rights
and are pushing to have them recognised.