The Contenders: How Elite Cadre Advance, Prospects for 2011

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 05 HANOI 000881

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E.O. 12958: DECL: 2019/10/22
TAGS: PGOV PREL PINR ECON VM
SUBJECT: The Contenders: How Elite Cadre Advance, Prospects for 2011

REF: A) HANOI 809, B) HANOI 823, C) 08 HCMC 450, D) HCMC 535

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CLASSIFIED BY: Michael Michalak, Ambassador; REASON: 1.4(B),(D)


1. (C) SUMMARY: Decision-making at the top of Vietnam's Communist
Party structure is broader based and more consensus driven than in
China, and the full Politburo and Central Committee take an active
role in policy and personnel matters. While the most fervid
speculation about the January 2011 Party Congress focuses on the
top four positions, jockeying for the 6-8 projected Politburo
vacancies and, a step lower, for a position on the Central
Committee (CC) will be fierce and consequential. What qualifies an
ambitious cadre for a seat on the CC and, ultimately, on the
Politburo? A close look at the resumes of the fifteen current
members of the Politburo, as well as prominent members of the CC
likely to make the Politburo in 2011, suggests two paths to
advancement: 1) provincial leadership and 2) service in the
central-level Party and state bureaucracies. Top CPV officials are
expected to broaden their resumes, but there is no established
system of provincial rotation. Cadre go "out of cone" relatively
late in their careers, typically in their first term on the Central
Committee. While ideology remains important, economic patronage
networks -- money politics - are increasingly supplanting wartime
ties as a basis for factionalism. END SUMMARY



What's at Stake

--------------




2. (C) The most fervid speculation about Vietnam's Eleventh Party
Congress, scheduled for January 2011, tends to focus on the CPV's
commanding heights -- General Secretary, Prime Minister, State
President, and National Assembly Chair -- as well as possible
vacancies in the foreign affairs and public security ministries
(refs A, B). Just as consequential, however, are contests for
national-level leadership positions farther down the Party
structure: as many as eight vacant Politburo seats, as well as a
significant portion of the 160-member Central Committee. This
reflects the fact that decision-making in Vietnam's Party
leadership tends to be "flatter" than it is in China, less
hierarchical and more consensus driven. With no standing committee
or a single "paramount leader," Vietnam's full Politburo, which
meets weekly, is involved in a broad range of decisions with
consensus required on relatively minor decisions, according to the
CPV External Relations Committee's lead official on China, Le Quang
Ba. This pattern essentially replicates, on a national level, the
decision-making model prevalent in HCMC (ref C),according to one
of the staff supporting HCMC Party Secretary and Politburo Member
Le Thanh Hai. Vietnam's Central Committee, which convenes as many
as three times a year, also has a direct say in policy and
personnel matters. Vietnam's Party politics is as a result
considerably messier -- more "democratic," as PRC Ambassador Sun
Guoxiang put it bluntly, and in confidence -- with policy argued at
lower levels and pre-Congress personnel decisions much more
volatile.




3. (SBU) The system may be volatile, but it is not capricious.
There are two clear paths to advancement, according to contacts
familiar with the Party structure: 1) provincial leadership and 2)
service in the central-level state and Party bureaucracies. Of the
Central Committee's 161 members, fifty are provincial Party
secretaries or deputy Party secretaries (at least nine others
formerly held such positions). Forty-nine can be considered as
serving in a state capacity, that is in a ministry or executive
agency, with an additional twelve from the military and fifteen
from the National Assembly. Thirty-five are in the Central
Committee by virtue of their Party position alone. (Of course, all
are Party members, by definition). A close look at the resumes of
the fifteen current members of the Politburo shows a similar
division: seven rose through the local ranks to positions of
provincial leadership, seven ascended through central-level
State/Party structures, and one, Ho Duc Viet, had a more mixed
resume, at one time serving as the Chair of Vietnam's National
Football Federation.

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Path I: Provincial Leadership

--------------




4. (SBU) The pattern of localism present in southern Vietnam (ref.
D) prevails throughout the country. While it is not uncommon for
senior officials from the central-level Party/state bureaucracy to
"parachute" into a position of provincial leadership as a vice
Party chair -- either to broaden their experience or to serve as a
"fixer" -- this is the exception, rather than the rule. There is
no regular system of provincial rotation, as in China, and it is
rare for a rising provincial star to be moved to a distant
province. When moves do occur, they are most often to a nearby
province. State President Nguyen Minh Triet, for example, took
over as HCMC Party Chief after what was viewed as an extremely
successful run in neighboring Binh Duong province. As the older
generation retires, economically based patronage networks are
coming to play an increasingly dominant role in defining factions
within the CPV, particularly in the South. While provincial
leaders remain homegrown, they often have ties to groups that
extend beyond their own provincial boundaries, and they take these
ties with them as they rise.




5. (SBU) Within the Politburo, Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung and
MPS Minister Le Hong Anh are perhaps the clearest examples of the
traditional "provincial route" to the top, having risen through the
CPV apparatus in Kien Giang, each reaching the position of Party
Secretary. (Anh is a native of Kien Giang, Dung was born in
neighboring Ca Mau, but moved to Kien Giang after serving in the
army.) CPV Standing Secretary Truong Tan Sang and HCMC Party Chief
Le Thanh Hai, Southerners from provinces bordering HCMC, each
attained increasingly powerful positions within the local HCMC
government and Party structure. DPM Truong Vinh Trong followed a
similar path in his native province of Ben Tre. Among Northerners,
General Secretary Nong Duc Manh rose almost exclusively in his
native province of Bac Thai (since split into Bac Kan and Thai
Nguyen),becoming Bac Thai Party Secretary in 1986. The
Politburo's sole representative from Central Vietnam, Nguyen Van
Chi, rose through the CPV apparatus in the Hoa Vang District of
Danang, where he was born, before ascending to the top position in
the (then combined) province of Quang Nam-Danang.



Path II: Central-Level Party/State

--------------




6. (SBU) The second path to advancement runs through Hanoi,
through service in the central-level Party or state bureaucracy.
The lines between Party and state authority are blurred. Within
the ministries and state-related agencies, internal Party cells
continue to play an important role, particularly in personnel
decisions and the transmission of general Party policy; likewise, a
bureaucrat cannot rise above a certain rank (office director
usually) without being a Party member. Still, among cadre whose
careers were made at the central level in Hanoi, there is a
further, useful distinction between those who advanced through the
ministries or military and those who were more specifically
involved in propaganda, ideology, and "Party building."




7. (SBU) Politburo members who rose through the ministries or
military include Standing DPM Nguyen Sinh Hung, who spent his
entire career in the Ministry of Finance, eventually serving as
Vice Minister and then Minister; DPM/FM Pham Gia Khiem, who had a
twenty-year career in the Ministry of Planning and Investment and
its predecessor, the State Planning Committee; and Defense Minister
Phung Quang Thanh, a career military officer. The second
sub-category, "ideological cadre," includes National Assembly Chair
Nguyen Phu Trong, who worked for nearly thirty years on the CPV's
leading theoretical journal, "The Communist Review," and Hanoi
Party Secretary Pham Quang Nghi, who spent over twenty years
working for the Central Ideology and Culture Commission, as it was

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then called. The Politburo's newest member, To Huy Rua, the
hard-line Chair of the CPV Propaganda and Education Commission,
spent the better part of two decades as a professor of Marxist
philosophy at the Central Political Propaganda and Training School
before taking leadership positions at the Ho Chi Minh Political
Academy.



Rounding out the Resume

--------------




8. (SBU) Elite cadre are expected to have a varied curriculum
vitae. By the time they are considered for Politburo membership
most will have served in both the provinces and at the central
level. Party leaders broaden their resumes relatively late in
one's career, however, typically during their first term on the
Central Committee. Prior to this, most cadre stay "in cone." GS
Manh, PM Dung, President Triet, DPM Trong, MPS Minister Anh, and
CPV Inspection Commission Chair Chi, for example, all assumed
powerful positions in the central-level Party/state system shortly
after joining the Central Committee, but before that they served
exclusively at the provincial level (wartime military service
excepted). Likewise, NA Chair Trong, Hanoi Party Secretary Nghi,
and CPV Propaganda and Ideology Commission Chair Rua -- all of whom
were Communist theorists before joining the Central Committee --
were given important administrative positions in the provinces
during their first CC term. This is not an iron-clad rule: Le
Thanh Hai has never left HCMC; CPV Standing Secretary Sang did
leave HCMC, but this occurred after he made the Politburo and only
because he was forced out as a consequence of the Nam Cam organized
crime scandal of the late 1990s; and DPM Hung, DPM/FM Khiem, and
Defense Minister Thanh have never served in the provinces.
Nevertheless, as a general principle, top-level cadres are expected
to fill out their resumes.



Patronage: The Ties that Bind

--------------




9. (C) While regionalism (north/south/central) and central Party
connections traditionally have formed the basis for promotion into
the top ranks of the CPV, those factors are increasingly
intertwined with money politics. In years past, regional and local
patronage networks were reinforced by wartime bonds: where one
served and with whom. This was true not just for military
officers, but for "political" cadre, who functioned through
regionally distinct Party networks and chains of command. At the
onset of Doi Moi, these regional ties took on an ideological
coloring: southerners such as GS Nguyen Van Linh, Prime Ministers
Vo Van Kiet and Phan Van Khai, and President Nguyen Minh Triet were
generally viewed as favoring economic reform, while others --
often, though not exclusively Northerners -- argued for continued
state control. These disputes have largely subsided, however, as
Vietnam became institutionally bound to market-oriented
development. Today, patronage networks and factionalism tend to
follow the money. This is, our contacts baldly state, the sole
reason, for example, that HCMC Party Chief Le Tanh Hai not only has
survived, but continues to wield considerable influence on the
Politburo; it is the real basis for Danang Party Chief Nguyen Ba
Thanh's ambitions for Politburo membership; and it is a source of
leverage for PM Nguyen Tan Dung, who exercises effective control
over many of Vietnam's most important state-owned enterprises and
thus dictates the flow of patronage jobs and contracts.




10. (C) In this environment, a growing number of party members are
neither "conservative" nor "reformist," but choose their alliances
solely on economic grounds, calculating which regional/money
faction offers the biggest financial return. Even the "ideological
cadre" of the type discussed in paragraph eight are not immune to
economic forces and generally either attach themselves to, or are
recruited by, a regional/money faction. To Huy Rua, to cite the

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most current example, is connected to former GS Le Kha Phieu's
Thanh Hoa network, but within the faction he was not in a position
to control patronage, at least until he took over as Haiphong Party
Chair. This changes, of course, as one rises, and one can expect
that Rua is now gaining material clout to match his ideological
influence. A similar case can be made for Pham Quang Nghi,
contacts say, who is rumored to have made a lot of people rich,
grateful, and -- he hopes -- loyal during the 2008 expansion of
Hanoi. In this sense, rounding out the resume not only provides
broader experience, it allows even the most ideologically pure
cadre to benefit from and develop lines of patronage.



Waiting in the Wings

--------------




11. (C) Based on the considerations listed above, as well as the
specific vacancies expected in 2011 (refs. A,B) our contacts
identify several leading contenders to ascend to the Politburo at
the Eleventh Party Congress. These include:



-- MPS VM Tran Dai Quang: If MPS Minister Anh steps aside, his
successor will get an automatic promotion to the Politburo. As the
clear front-runner for Anh's job, Quang is also the front-runner
for his Politburo chair.



-- VFM Pham Binh Minh: Minh's promotion this year to full voting
status at the Central Committee was significant. Minh is the
leading contender to replace Pham Gia Khiem as Foreign Minister, if
not concurrently as DPM. Unlike the MPS, Vietnam's Foreign
Minister is not guaranteed a position on the Politburo.



-- Nghe An Party Secretary Tran Van Hanh: Hang worked for the
Ministry of Labor, invalids, and Social Affairs (MOLISA) for over
twenty years, eventually rising to Vice Minister. He then gained
provincial experience as Deputy Party Chief in Soc Trang. After
that he was brought back to Hanoi, where he served as the Chair of
the CPV External Relations Committee before being sent to his home
province of Nghe An. Hanh's resume is well suited for a DPM, and
he has also been mentioned as a dark-horse candidate for FM.



-- Danang Party Secretary Nguyen Ba Thanh: Thanh is not popular in
Hanoi, but may be selected to provide regional balance to a
Politburo that is about to lose its sole representative from
Central Vietnam. The fact that Danang reached the number one spot
on the Provincial Competitiveness Index gives Ba Thanh claim to
some of the technocratic clout that helped propel President Nguyen
Minh Triet from Binh Duong to the top. Lastly, Ba Thanh has
amassed the type of personal wealth and economic connections that
could help him develop broad patronage ties within the CPV, much as
HCMC Party Secretary Hai has done.



-- National Assembly Vice Chair Pham Thi Phong: Contacts on the NA
assert that she is a real possibility to replace Trong as NA Chair.
Phong is already a member of the CPV Secretariat. An ethnic Thai,
Phong served nearly her entire career in Son La. Both her gender
and ethnic origin could count in her favor given the Party's stated
emphasis on becoming more inclusive.



-- DPM Hoang Trung Hai: Two of the three DPMs on the Politburo are
expected to retire. Of the two DPMs not on the Politburo, Hai is
said to have fared much better than DPM Nhan, who is viewed as a
brilliant man but poor administrator and has been widely blamed for
failing to reform Vietnam's faltering educational system.

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-- Sr. Lt. General Le Van Dung: Also on the Secretariat, Dung is
chair of the Defense Ministry's powerful Political Department. The
military is comparatively underrepresented in the current
Politburo, and could press for an additional seat. Dung was
reprimanded by the CPV in 2001 for his alleged role in former GS Le
Kha Phieu's plot to wiretap fellow Politburo members. If Dung
makes it onto the Politburo, this would likely be interpreted as a
further sign that Phieu's protege's continue to gain influence.



-- Ngo Van Du: Newly selected to the Secretariat, Du is Chief of
the Central Committee Office. He is in a good position to assume
one of the Politburo positions that focus on internal CPV matters.



-- Inspector General Tran Van Truyen: A leading candidate to
succeed Nguyen Van Chi as Chair of the CPV Central Inspectorate
Commission. Before assuming his present position, Truyen was the
Commission's deputy. He also has valuable provincial experience,
having served as Ben Tre Party Secretary.



-- Ca Mau Party Secretary Nguyen Tuan Khanh: Khanh was appointed
to his present post in 2008 to replace Ca Mau's scandal-ridden
previous Party Chief. A former Deputy Chair of the CPV
Organization Commission, Khanh has excellent central-level Party
experience. He also has served as Party Secretary of Gia Lai.



Comment

--------------




12. (C) Promotions and assignments are important to Vietnam's
Communist Party and influence its approach to policy. "Election
year" jostling is already underway and may impede progress on
still-sensitive issues such as participation in global
peacekeeping, as well as exacerbate pressure on political dissent
as contenders vie to prove their moxie. The career paths taken by
Vietnam's most ambitious, successful cadre tend to exacerbate an
already entrenched localized system of alliances that is both
historically fraught and -- on a personal level -- increasingly
lucrative. This can, in turn, both inhibit the leadership from
developing a coherent national perspective and make it difficult to
impose policy on the provinces. On the other hand, as with the
National Assembly, the result is also a feistier politics, with
Party officials in a certain sense answerable to identifiable
constituencies. This is hardly democracy, but as the Chinese
Ambassador remarked to us recently it is considerably less tidy
than his own leadership would find comfortable. END COMMENT.




13. (U) This cable was coordinated with ConGen HCMC.
Michalak