Tenth National Congress of The Communist Party of Vietnam - The Congress and The 1st Plenum

The Congress and The 1st Plenum

The elected 10th Central Committee comprised 81 (52.5 percent) members from the 9th Central Committee, and 79 (47.5 percent) new members were elected. The candidate with the highest vote received 97.88 percent, while the candidate with the lowest vote received 63.41 percent. All the provinces, with the exception of Đắk Nông province, elected officials to the 10th Central Committee. A number of surprises occurred during the election process; six ministers were not re-elected. Another surprise was that no officials from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs were elected as full members. However, Phạm Bình Minh, the Director of the International Organizations Directorate of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, was elected as an alternate member. None of the 34 self-nominated candidates at the congress were elected to the 10th Central Committee. It is unknown whether any of the self-nominees for alternate membership in the 10th Central Committee were elected. There was an increase in Central Committee officials working in the central government, the provinces, military and defence officials, public security officials and officials from mass organizations, but there was a decrease in officials from the sectors of information, social and cultural affairs, economics, business and financial affairs, and others.

As it progressed, some delegates publicly demanded that the congress should be given the authority to elect the general secretary and the head of the Central Commission for Inspection. This was approved and a survey form which listed four possible candidates; Mạnh, Nguyễn Minh Triết, Nguyễn Văn An and Nguyễn Phú Trọng was created. Nguyễn Văn An withdrew his candidacy, knowing he would not be elected to the 10th Politburo because he was not elected to the 10th Central Committee. However, because of party rules which stated that the Central Committee after the congress elected the general secretary, the vote at the congress was considered a survey. Another version of the proceedings, that given by Mạnh at the press conference after the congress, was that the 1,176 congress delegates were given a list of the elected members of the 10th Central Committee, and were given a free choice of electing any of them to the general secretaryship. After the congress, on 25 April, the 1st plenum of the Central Committee convened to elect the general secretary. The two leading candidates at the congress survey, Mạnh and Nguyễn Minh Triết, stood for election at the plenum. Mạnh was elected and Nguyễn Minh Triết was appointed state president. However, rumours that Mạnh won narrowly over his rival, and that Nguyễn Minh Triết withdrew his candidature following the party tradition of appointing the general secretary, circulated after the congress.

The 10th Politburo comprised 14 members. As was decided at the first plenum, the ranking given to Politburo members was to be decided by the number of approval votes the official earned during the election. Lê Hồng Anh, the Minister of Public Security, was ranked second in the Politburo because he received the second-most approval votes for his candidacy. Of the 14 members of the Politburo, five were concurrently members of the 10th Secretariat. The Secretariat comprised eight members, amongst whom the highest rank was general secretary.