Vietnam set to oust top leader in major reshuffle
HANOI -
After months of speculation, Vietnam's ruling communist party is
finally set to oust the country's top leader -- conservative party
chief Le Kha Phieu -- in a major reshuffle of the leadership.
The party's powerful 170-strong central committee will gather next
Wednesday to thrash out the details of the resulting changes
which will be rubber-stamped by a five-yearly party congress later this
year, a top official told AFP.
The meeting may go on as long as a fortnight amid continuing
disagreements among party factions about the succession, the
official said, asking not to be named.
Vietnam's number one has been under fire for months for a performance
widely regarded as lacklustre.
An explosion of unrest which swept the central highlands at the end of
January finally sealed his fate, diplomats and analysts
say.
The party's three powerful advisors -- elder statesmen Do Muoi, Le Duc
Anh and Vo Van Kiet -- had circulated a letter within
the leadership as long ago as last October accusing him of
demonstrating "a lack of ability in party and state management."
At its last meeting in January, the central committee debated an
upper-age limit for senior officials which was widely seen as an
attempt to give the 69-year-old party chief an honourable way out.
The two weeks of protests by ethnic minority demonstrators which rocked
Vietnam's main coffee-growing region early last
month finally threw into stark relief the failings of Phieu's three
years in office.
The former army chief had been appointed to the country's top job to
provide a steadying hand after a similar wave of unrest
swept the countryside in the midst of the Asian financial crisis in
1997.
The party blames the rural violence on rampant corruption and abuses
among party cadres which have severely dented the
party's prestige, particularly among its traditional bedrock support,
the peasantry.
Phieu is accused of paying no more than lipservice to tackling the
problem with a string of much vaunted party building
campaigns which are widely perceived as having targetted minor
officials while leaving the big fish untouched.
Worse, he is himself accused of cronyism in the appointment of a string
of supporters from his native province of Thanh Hoa to
top positions within the government.
He is also widely despised for his massive strengthening of the
intelligence services within both the party apparatus and the
armed forces, which has seen a string of false allegations levelled
against his reformist opponents.
Diplomats say the aging party chief has only been able to hold on so
long because of the lack of any obvious replacement.
The party has repeatedly ducked the issue in recent months, giving no
discussion at all to the problem at its last meeting in
January and postponing another meeting tentatively scheduled for last
month.
The wide divisions within the leadership over what is euphemistically
referred to as the "personnel issue" have become
increasingly public as the debate has dragged on, forcing the
postponement of the party congress, which had been due to be
held this month.
It has been an unedifying spectacle for a ruling party which has always
made it a point of honour not to wash its dirty linen in
public.
The central committee is likely to opt for a stopgap solution in an
attempt to bring the issue to a close so that the congress can
go ahead before the summer, the senior official told AFP.
President Tran Duc Luong, long regarded by diplomats as the least
influential of Vietnam's top leaders, is likely to be offered
the position as an interim measure, even though he has little support
among the powerful armed forces, the official said.
Reformist Prime Minister Phan Khai also remains a candidate for the
job, or might be given the presidency.
The head of the party's powerful organizing committee, Nguyen Van An,
is also a candidate for the top job, he said.
Whatever the outcome, the party is expected to be forced to return to
the question before the next party congress in five years'
time.
There is insufficient consensus just yet for the sort of wholesale
shakeup demanded by the younger generation of leaders, the
official said.
Agence France Presse - March 9, 2001.
|