New CPV politburo to push for development and fight corruption
Hanoi (AsiaNews/SCMP) After 20 years of contradictory reforms, delegates to the 10th Congress of the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV) are calling for renewal, transparency, greater space for younger cadres and greater creativity to restore the population's confidence in its rule.
The first step in the direction of renewal came with the election of the party's Central Committee (CC). Contrary to the past, delegates did not simply rubber stamp choices are already made; this time the party's 1,178 delegates had the opportunity to choose the CC's 160 seats from 207 candidates. Today the new CC will elect the party's new politburo and general secretary. Nông Ðức Mạnh, the outgoing secretary, is expected to retain its post.
President Trần Đức Lương, 70, and Prime Minister Phan Văn Khải, 72, are instead expected to step down. Rumours still abound about what 56-year-old Deputy Prime Minister Nguyễn Tấn Dũng will do. Delegates are divided over Mr Dũng's record as an economic manager and deputy interior minister. He is seen as young and dynamic but still a product of the system now criticised.
Nguyễn Minh Triet, the 64-year-old party's chief in Ho Chi Minh City, is expected to take the presidency. He had a key hand in developing industry and fostering foreign investment in provinces around the city and has strong reformist credentials.
The country's economy must be further developed and modernised but this requires reining in its endemic graft and corruption and making both party and government transparent.
Vietnam posted an 8.4 growth rate last year but its population is also growing fast 60 per cent of its 83 million people are under 30 and looking for jobs.
This explains the rock star's welcome Microsoft founder and Chairman Bill Gates received last week from government officials as well as ordinary citizens and students.
Mr Gates came to promote a project to connect rural centres via the internet and launch a project that uses Vietnamese-made computers with Microsoft programs, and last Saturday he spoke to thousands of students from Hanoi University interested in understanding how information technology can transform their lives.
He is expected to loosen Microsoft's purse strings, making donations and concessions to the country in exchange for having his programmes incorporated into the government's institutions.
"Bill Gates wants to understand more about Vietnam before setting his investment strategy," said Trần Doan Kim of the Association of Vietnam Software Enterprises, this in a country where the per capita income is US$ 640 and 90 per cent of all software programmes are pirated versions that sell for less than US$ 2. (PB)
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