New leaders set to take over in Vietnam
HANOI - A new government is set to take over in Vietnam this week, tasked with steering the communist country into a new economic era, after the prime minister and other leaders stepped down at the weekend.
In the reshuffle, deputy premier Nguyen Tan Dung, 56, a former state bank chief, is expected to succeed his long-time mentor Phan Van Khai, who resigned as prime minister at age 72 on Saturday after nine years of fast-paced change.
Economic reformer Nguyen Minh Triet, 63, the party boss in the southern business hub of Ho Chi Minh City, is seen as the most likely candidate to replace Tran Duc Luong, 69, as president of the one-party state.
The national assembly, which approved the resignations on Saturday, will also appoint a new chief of the legislature and ministers of foreign affairs, defence, interior, finance, transport, health, and culture and information.
The changes have been expected since a five-yearly congress of the ruling Communist Party in April but must be approved by the 496-member assembly, which is scheduled to wrap up its six-week session this week.
Party boss Nong Duc Manh spoke Saturday of the need to "harmonise the leadership of the party with the state and guarantee the succession of the national leadership," the state-run Vietnam News Agency reported.
"It's an orderly generational change," said Vietnam expert Carl Thayer of the Australian Defence Force Academy. "Senior people are going and being replaced by their understudies."
Dung and his team will take over as the pace of change is likely to speed up in Vietnam, a war-battered country a generation ago that was Southeast Asia's fastest-growing economy last year, with 8.4 percent
GDP growth.
Vietnam is expected to become the 150th member of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) this year, with the promise of greater exports but also the danger of foreign competitors taking on its crumbling state sector at home.
In November, Vietnam will host an Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (
APEC) summit, it largest ever international conference, that will bring leaders including US President George W Bush and China's President
Hu Jintao.
"The APEC summit will be Vietnam's crowning moment," said Thayer. "It's a new era for Vietnam. This will take people of energy."
The economy may be growing rapidly, bringing social change to the country of 83 million people, but in politics the regime stresses continuity, consensus and the guiding role of the party.
Saturday's assembly vote took place behind closed doors and without media access, and the regime was not due to officially inform the country of the resignations until Monday -- but few will be surprised by the outcome.
"We all know who will be given the top positions," said a local government official and former soldier, asking not to be named. "In our country, the leadership belongs to the party, it's collective leadership.
"Things are arranged beforehand, so the National Assembly's approval of the top personnel is simply nominal. The assembly has been more critical recently, but they cannot change the whole system."
Agence France Presse - June 25, 2006.
Fast-growing Vietnam votes in younger leaders
HANOI - Communist Vietnam's one-party parliament voted at the weekend for a younger leadership to pursue the tasks of quickening economic reforms and fighting deep-seated corruption.
On Saturday, parliament accepted the resignations of Prime Minister Phan Van Khai, 72, President Tran Duc Luong, 69, and Assembly chairman Nguyen Van An, 69, in a closed session.
Leadership changes were decided at the five-yearly Communist Party National Congress in April but will be formalized this week by parliamentary deputies, officials said.
"It's necessary to reshuffle several senior positions of the nation to ensure comprehensive Party leadership, harmonize the leadership of the Party with the State and guarantee the succession of the national leadership," Party General Secretary Nong Duc Manh told parliament on Saturday.
Manh, 65, was appointed to a second five-year term in April.
Manh promised to boost efforts to fight corruption, which the party recognizes as a threat to its rule and its hopes of lifting the Southeast Asian country out of poverty in the next 10 to 15 years.
Vietnam has one of the fastest-growing economies in the world after China but its per capita annual income is only $640 and it lags behind its regional neighbors in competing for business.
Khai, who in June 2005 became the first Vietnamese premier to visit Washington since the Vietnam War ended in 1975, nominated Deputy Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung in May to succeed him.
Dung, 56, has been groomed for the job and is considered a representative of the younger generation of Vietnamese leaders.
Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon) party chief Nguyen Minh Triet, 63, was expected to become state president and Hanoi party chairman Nguyen Phu Trong, 62, chairman of the National Assembly, political analysts said.
Reuters - June 25, 2006.
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