Is Thanh the man?

EARLIER this month Vietnam’s courts handed out long jail sentences to 14 young democracy activists and bloggers accused, on the flimsiest of evidence, of subverting the state. Even by the sorry standards of the country’s Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV) rulers this marked a new low of pitiless, disproportionate repression. Their main transgression seems to have been nothing more belligerent than to attend a training session in Bangkok run by a banned political party.
The CPV might have meant the show trial as a sign of political strength, to intimidate any opposition, but most Vietnamese read the event more cynically—as an act of desperation by an increasingly paranoid party. Despite the economic progress brought by a quarter-century of reform and relative openness, the CPV risks losing the moral authority it needs to rule.
Since the press is utterly under the government’s control, the crackdown on dissent is largely directed at the internet. At one point Vietnam was estimated to have at least 2m blogs—mostly chatting about innocuous “lifestyle” themes, but with a significant number covering sensitive social, economic and political issues in ways the party did not like. The crackdown has increased in ferocity over the past two years, apparently in direct proportion to the country’s mounting litany of problems. In terms of internet freedom, Vietnam now ranks near the bottom of global league tables, just above China and Iran. In a region of fast-changing reform, notably in Myanmar, Vietnam more than ever looks like a political dinosaur—and one heading in the wrong direction, too.
The main reason for the CPV’s defensiveness is its mismanagement of the economy. Only five years ago the country was lauded as the new Asian tiger, notching up record growth rates. Yet now the old structural problems of a largely unreformed socialist economic system have caught up with it—producing, in quick succession, rising inflation, a falling currency, deeply indebted banks and tumbling economic growth, down to a modest 5% or so last year. Everyone, even the Communist leaders, agrees that the main culprits are the state-owned enterprises (SOEs) through which the party tries to manage the economy in traditional socialist style. They account for about 40% of the nation’s output yet are poorly managed, wasteful and uncompetitive. In 2011 one of the biggest SOEs, the shipbuilder Vinashin, nearly collapsed altogether.
More damagingly, however, the SOEs’ operations appear to be sullied by corruption, and that has undermined the authority of a party founded by the ascetic Ho Chi Minh. The senior managers are all political appointees. Often the SOEs seem to be run mainly for the benefit of party members, many of whom are now very rich. Last year was a terrible one for the reputation of SOEs and the CPV alike, with several instances of executives fleeing abroad or going to jail. Corruption has long been systemic. A report by the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry last year found that 50% of businessmen admitted to bribing officials in order to win contracts. The real proportion is probably higher.
Just as there has been a lot of talk about how to reform the SOEs, so there has been plenty of discussion about how to tackle corruption—but little action. At last, however, the party has acted, but in typical fashion. Rather than force resignations or sackings, which would undermine the party’s claims to infallibility, it has sent for one of its own to sort the mess out.
The man riding to the rescue is Nguyen Ba Thanh, the 59-year-old party boss of Danang, the country’s third-largest city. He has just been appointed head of a powerful new party body, the Central Internal Affairs Commission, with a brief to reduce graft. Mr Thanh will arrive in Hanoi with a reputation for charisma and blunt, plain-speaking effectiveness. He carries the hopes of reformers that he can reproduce this at the national level.
He will have his work cut out. He is walking straight into a bitter power struggle between, on the one hand, the prime minister, Nguyen Tan Dung, and, on the other, the president, Truong Tan Sang, along with the CPV’s general-secretary, Nguyen Phu Trong. Mr Dung’s reputation has been tarnished by the fiasco at Vinashin and other scandals; he was said to be close to several Vinashin executives and also to a banker, Nguyen Duc Kien, who was arrested last August for alleged “economic violations”. Mr Dung only narrowly held on to his job. The arrival of Mr Thanh appears intended to clip his wings yet further. Mr Dung is counter-attacking, however. A government agency issued an unusual report this month attacking mismanagement and corruption in Danang on Mr Thanh’s watch.
For such ructions at the top to become public is another symptom of strains within the political system in Vietnam. Meanwhile, public anger and frustration with the party are growing, though not as yet to revolutionary levels. Nonetheless, confrontations with authority, for instance over government land grabs, may well now turn violent. In all likelihood Mr Thanh’s brief will allow him only to tinker with the current system. More profound change will have to wait, or come against the party’s wishes.