Model congress of grassroots Party committees: Democracy, innovation and high unity

(Baonghean) - Up to now, 5 Party Committees under the Provincial Party Committee have held Congresses for the 2015-2020 term, including 4 grassroots Party Committees: Que Phong, Tuong Duong, Quynh Luu, and the Provincial Military Party Committee, which were selected by the Provincial Party Committee Standing Committee to hold model congresses of the province. In general, the congresses have truly promoted democracy and intelligence within the Party, implemented 4 contents in accordance with the guiding spirit, creating a foundation to improve the effectiveness of the Party's leadership in the new term.

Right to the point

Through monitoring at the grassroots party committees that have held model congresses, it can be seen that although the political reports and review reports submitted to the congresses are quite general and comprehensive; at the same time, they accurately assess and closely match the local situation. From there, the targets and goals for the next term are set with focus, ensuring both practicality and offensiveness.

At the Party Committee of the mountainous district of Que Phong, after 2 days of officially organizing the 21st District Party Congress, term 2015 - 2020, delegates voted to approve the general goal of bringing Que Phong out of poverty by 2020, striving to become a fairly developed district in the mountainous region. The 26th Party Congress of Tuong Duong district, term 2015 - 2020 agreed on the general goal of enhancing the leadership capacity of the Party Committee and the responsibility of the political system, uniting the entire people, promoting internal strength, attracting all resources to strive to bring Tuong Duong out of poverty soon. Meanwhile, in Quynh Luu district, the District Party Congress for the term 2015 - 2020 set the goal of striving to achieve the status of a new rural district by 2020 and the district is in the top group of the province;...

Delegates voted to approve the personnel plan of the Que Phong District Party Committee for the 2015-2020 term.

It can be seen that at the selected grassroots Party Committees to organize model congresses, the setting of goals for the next term was carried out democratically, closely following the actual situation of each locality, so it received high consensus from the whole congress. From there, the discussions at the congresses were serious, lively and of high quality. The comments were sincere, frank, and covered quite fully the fields of socio-economics, national defense - security and political system building; comments on higher-level documents and projects on the number and structure of personnel of the Party Committee of the direct higher level.

According to statistics, at the Party Congress of Que Phong and Tuong Duong districts, there were 17 opinions; the provincial military had 16 opinions; and Quynh Luu had 14 opinions. According to the assessment from the Provincial Party Committee's Organizing Committee, the discussion process was conducted democratically, frankly, with a serious attitude of self-criticism and criticism. Most of the opinions were focused, key, and responsible; the majority expressed high agreement with the contents of the draft document, supplementing and amending a number of goals, tasks, and implementation solutions, especially breakthrough solutions, in order to soon complete the goals, directions, and tasks set out by the congress.

High concentration

In addition to discussing, drafting and voting on documents, at the congress, the election of Party Committee members, positions in the Party Committee and the Inspection Committee plays a very important role for the success of the congress. In that spirit, the Party Committee personnel work for the 2015-2020 term was carried out in accordance with Party regulations, ensuring quality, inheritance, development, and reasonable quantity and structure.

The Quynh Luu District Party Congress for the 2015-2020 term elected 41 comrades to the District Party Committee, all of whom were within the plan, ensuring standards and proportions, and only needing to vote once to have enough numbers with a high percentage of concentrated votes. Accordingly, the percentage of young cadres (≤ 35 years old) reached 12.2%; the percentage of women reached 16.4%; the percentage of Party Committee renewal reached 51.2%. Similarly, the election work at the Tuong Duong District Party Congress was also highly appreciated. Comrade Pham Trong Hoang, Secretary of the District Party Committee, said: “Thanks to the good implementation of personnel preparation, the election at the congress achieved good results. The election was conducted in accordance with the procedures, regulations and Party Charter, and in accordance with the orientation. The highest number of votes for the Party Committee was 99.59%, the lowest was 89.84%; at the first meeting of the Executive Committee, the positions of Standing Committee, Secretary, Deputy Secretaries, Inspection Committee, and Chairman of the Inspection Committee were elected in accordance with the orientation and many comrades were elected with 100% of the votes.

At each Party Committee selected to hold a model congress, the total number of Party Committees elected by the congress was 134 comrades (the Tuong Duong Party Congress unanimously elected 1 comrade to supplement after the congress, so the number of Party Committees elected by the congresses of Party Committees was 133 comrades). The proportion of young cadres, the rate of innovation, and the rate of women all met and exceeded the requirements. The quality of Party Committees in terms of expertise and political theory was high. The Executive Committees of the Party Committees elected the Standing Committee, elected the Secretary, Deputy Secretary, elected the Inspection Committee, and elected the Chairman of the Inspection Committee in the right direction with high concentration. The Party Committees elected 50 official delegates and 6 alternate delegates to attend the 18th Provincial Party Congress, term 2015 - 2020, ensuring compliance with the Party Charter and ensuring the correct number and structure according to the Notice of the Provincial Party Committee Executive Committee. There is 1 unit that elects a sufficient number of official and alternate delegates at once (Tuong Duong); 3 units including Que Phong, Quynh Luu, and Military Province elect official delegates before electing alternate delegates.

Lessons learned

According to the assessment, in general, the organization of the congresses of the grassroots party committees selected by the Provincial Party Committee has been a great success. However, there are still some issues that need to be learned from and directed so that the grassroots party committees directly under the Provincial Party Committee can better organize the congresses in the coming time.

First of all, regarding the presentation of political reports at the congress and the management of the discussion, in the opening session, the Party Congress of Que Phong and Tuong Duong districts only arranged 2 discussions before the higher-level delegates spoke, which is relatively few. In some places, the discussions in the congress were long, assigned to be prepared in advance according to the ordered topics, so they were still constrained, not flexible, and lacked the nature of exchange and debate; in some places, some discussions were still focused on reporting achievements and did not focus on discussing the political report and other contents of the congress. In all 4 units, the congress model did not report on the synthesis of the grassroots's comments on the structure and criteria for participating in the Party Executive Committee at the higher level (report on acceptance or amendments and supplements...) before approving the personnel plan and did not report on the synthesis of comments on the draft resolution of the congress at the higher level.

In addition, the synthesis of party members' opinions from grassroots party organizations into higher-level documents and personnel plans has not been much. The direction of the congress presidium, the operation of the connection in the direction of some comrades did not follow the script, leading to confusion, and some places were still inaccurate. Some places did not clearly report to the congress about the standards of the Executive Committee; the election of the Standing Committee in the first meeting of the Executive Committee did not include candidates and nominations in the list; the balance in the list of candidates for the Standing Committee did not reach over 10%. At the meeting, the Executive Committee did not approve the plan for the Inspection Committee. The results of the election of the Standing Committee, the Inspection Committee, and the Chairman of the Inspection Committee must be announced by the head of the vote counting committee, not by the conference chair.

Comrades in the Party Committee of Quynh Luu district for the 2015-2020 term voted to elect the Standing Committee of the District Party Committee for the 2015-2020 term.

Regarding the awareness and responsibility of official delegates and the activities of the ballot counting committee, through the records, it can be seen that some delegates have not studied and thoroughly understood the Party's election regulations, so there are still invalid ballots (in some units, in the election of the Party Executive Committee, there were 6 invalid ballots and in the election of the official delegation to attend the congress at a higher level, there were 4 invalid ballots). Along with that, a shortcoming at the congresses in all 4 Party organizations is that when the ballot counting committee reported the results, there was no public step with the congress, which was to hand over the minutes and sealed envelopes of ballots to the congress presidium.

Regarding personnel work, at the Vinh University Party Congress (not part of the model congress party but has organized a congress), the work of electing the Party Executive Committee had a case in the structure that did not make it to the Executive Committee. This is also an experience for other party committees to have more thorough preparations for the personnel of the new Party Executive Committee. In addition, the units organizing the congress need to pay more attention to the reception, ceremony, decoration, rituals and welcoming performances to make the congress more successful.

Comrade Dau Van Thanh, Deputy Head of the Standing Committee of the Provincial Party Committee's Organization Board, said: "Party congresses at all levels leading up to the 12th National Party Congress are a broad political activity. Therefore, localities and units need to focus on preparing well and learning from experiences from Party committees that have organized congresses in the spirit of democracy, strengthening solidarity, and promoting collective intelligence so that the congresses can be organized successfully. From there, we will lay the foundation for effectively implementing the Resolutions of Party Congresses at all levels."

Nhat Le - Minh Chi