"The trend of unifying the positions of Secretary and Chairman of the People's Committee is necessary"

The 7th Conference of the 12th Party Central Committee passed Resolution No. 26 on Focusing on building a contingent of cadres at all levels, especially at the strategic level, with sufficient qualities, capacity and prestige equal to the task. One of the breakthroughs in cadre work in this Resolution is the policy that the Secretary of the provincial Party Committee must not be a local person.

VOV reporter interviewed Historian and National Assembly Delegate Duong Trung Quoc about this content.

PV:From the Law of Refugee showsOur fathers foresaw the mandarin's work.standIf the provincial party chief is a local person, it will establish familiar and family relationships, causing complications and difficulties for management and administration. In reality, the situation has now arisen as “Dear comrade father, comrade wife, comrade son…”. If we implement the policy that the Party Secretary is not a local person, do you think this problem will be completely resolved?

Mr. Duong Trung Quoc: Certainly, it is a breakthrough factor with positive impact, however, to solve it thoroughly, it is not only at this stage. This is just a solution, requiring both mechanism and environment and this is also what we need to do, but along with it is the building of institutions, especially close supervision and assigned personal responsibility, then it will be gradually overcome.

PV: In addition to the story of family and clan relationships, when the head of the Party Committee is a local person, there is also the risk of group interests, manipulation of personnel work and a series of other negative things. Do you think we will not have to worry about this issue when the Party Committee Secretary is a person from another locality?

Mr. Duong Trung Quoc: The Hui Ty Law is more comprehensive, not only mentioning the issue of an official not being allowed to rule in his hometown but also has many other regulations such as not marrying a local woman, not buying real estate there, and even the Deputy must not be a fellow villager.

Historian - National Assembly Delegate Duong Trung Quoc.

Most importantly, in our political system, the Secretary is the person with the highest position, so this will create a very fundamental change, but it cannot be radical from the beginning, it must be a process, it will eliminate risks, but open up development, and promote the leadership role.

In other countries, lobbying is normal, even in the United States it is considered a way to improve social management. The remaining issue is to monitor on the basis of law, whether the "collusion" brings common benefits or local benefits. Sometimes the "collusion" is advisory in nature, sometimes its positive impact is promoted.

I think that, along with this, there needs to be a legal system. If all of that "collusion" serves personal interests, it will be regulated by law and subject to legal and social supervision.

PV: Do you think that if the Party Secretary is not a local person, it will lead to the phenomenon of the leader being isolated and there will be other difficulties when learning about the locality?

Mr. Duong Trung Quoc:If the Party Secretary is not a local person, it will be difficult to understand the locality. I think that in today's era, this is not a valid reason. They can access a lot of information, as well as operate the apparatus because the Secretary does not have to work alone but also has other members.

Besides, provincial leaders not only know local issues but also establish the position of that province in the country as a whole, even integrating with the world. Therefore, people from other places have a broader perspective, more suitable to current trends than local people. And that is what creates better development for the locality.

The remaining problem is the apparatus, one is the relationship between the Party apparatus and the government; the second is within that Party organization. Between people from other places and local people, this problem and that problem will certainly arise, but if a mechanism is created, especially a personal responsibility mechanism, it will create conditions for each person to have their own responsibility for their position, here is the role of the leader. People sent from other places must have full qualities to be able to develop.

PV: According to you, when an official from another locality comes to work as Secretary of the provincial Party Committee, which apparatus controls this position?

Mr. Duong Trung Quoc: In addition to having moral qualities and training, the important issue for local leaders is still responsibility. For a long time, we have often talked about collective responsibility, or in other words, the whole village, and even that person is not disciplined but is promoted in another field, so this issue is only monitored by the people. If we respect and have a channel for people to participate in monitoring, it is a very positive factor supporting the policy of finding a system of officials with enough capacity to run the locality.

Here we are discussing one step, and one step does not solve any problem radically, but it can be a start, requiring the whole machine to change and each person to change himself.

PV:In your opinion, should we build a mechanism to protect leaders so that they can work side by side with local people to do their jobs well, because there are often times when leaders are isolated?

Mr. Duong Trung Quoc: I remember, when discussing the Law on Guards, some local leaders suggested that there should be someone to protect their safety, but I think that is not important. Because this could isolate them from the local people.

The important thing is that the leader must be talented and strong enough to unite the members of the organization to carry out their tasks. Goodness is fundamental, they may have negative aspects, but if we create a mechanism to encourage them to do good deeds, to benefit from good deeds, then they will not dare, there is no need to be negative anymore and surely everyone will have the desire to contribute to the locality, to the homeland.

PV:What do you think about the idea of ​​unifying the positions of Secretary and Chairman of the People's Committee?

Mr. Duong Trung Quoc:This trend is necessary, especially in the period of nation building. The chosen model may be different, based on our own characteristics, but in any case, national management should still learn from other countries.

I remember one time at the National Assembly, we welcomed a leader who holds two positions from a big country. I saw both of our country's senior leaders standing together to show respect. I said, a small country like Laos, a big country like China can do it, so why can't we? But with that comes the greater the power, the greater the responsibility.

Recently, there has been a very positive movement that the law does not exclude anyone, and we also see that people have confidence in the leadership. Therefore, empowering officials but having a legal system and people's supervision, plus responsibility, can completely overcome that problem.

PV:Thank you.