Who evaluates and protects state officials who “dare to think, dare to do”?

General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong speaks at Vietnam’s legislative body National Assembly on October 23, 2018

Speaking at the group discussion at the November 10’s afternoon on documents submitted to the 13th party’s National Congress, legislator Dao Thanh Hai, deputy director of the Hanoi Department of Police, said after a series of incidents over time, many party members are not willing for innovation and creation. According to Mr. Hai, this situation does not only occur on a small scale but is happening at all levels, branches, and localities.

Professor Nguyen Dinh Cong, who abandoned the party in 2016 after more than 30 years of membership, agrees with the statement of the representative of the Hanoi delegation.

That statement is true. Many Party members and cadres are incapable of creativity, incapable of thinking and following only their superiors’ instructions. There are a few who have the ability to think about new problems, unreasonable problems, but state officials do not dare to say but keep them secret.”

With his experience as an active official in the education sector, Mr. Do Viet Khoa from Hanoi pointed out the reasons why Party members did not dare to innovate and create:

A government based on inconsistency, protecting each other so that they have the same purpose to enjoy their rights but saying out to protect the party, ie monopoly. So state and party officials obey the party’s policies without thinking for innovation and creation nor willing to fight against the wrongs within the party or breakthrough science, technology, technology, society, politics. . They never do even they realize the need for innovation. It is inevitable for the one-party institution, a government without being inspected by ordinary people.

Meanwhile, the Marx-Lenin philosophy that they brought to Vietnam and consider as a guideline clearly states that the struggle and conflict resolution is the driving force for social development. In fact, the party discourages every struggle, every creation, every change, and opinions.”

Right-wrong boundary

Legislator Dao Thanh Hai, when speaking before the seminar on November 10, said the resolution speaks about innovations and breakthroughs to complete the required objectives of the resolution. However, he admits that in innovation and breakthrough, the line between right and wrong is very fragile, even “extremely fragile.”

Agree with the above point of view, Professor Nguyen Dinh Cong commented:

Right now, it is right to say between right and wrong is fragile, but who judges? Currently, there is no force to evaluate. If the regime wants to do that, it has to make it for dialogue, free speech, exchange, you write articles, I write articles and people come to see or have a dialogue. However, there is no freedom of speech over here, no dialogue is organized, so it is difficult to judge right and wrong because it depends on each person’s point of view. People have an idiom that the thing is wright today but may become wrong tommorrow.”

According to Mr. Vu Minh Tri, a former officer of the General Department of Defense Intelligence, suggested the following:

I think state officials’ own judgment would be inaccurate because all of them, from top to bottom, are the same. I think the only and correct criterion is to be judged by our people.”

Protection mechanism?

The state-controlled newspaper reported that there were many comments on the mechanism to protect officials who dare to think, dare to do and dare to innovate in the seminar on November 10 afternoon.

Specifically, according to the deputy director of Hanoi Police Department, the resolution of the Party National Congress should emphasize the issue of protecting cadres because the current situation shows that when officers innovate, if they can do it, they will get ovation, but if not, they will be punished severely although the failure may be a result of objective reasons.

Therefore, Major General Dao Thanh Hai said that if the officers cannot be protected, no one will be creative, no one dares to innovate or break through.

After listening to the presentation, Hanoi Party Secretary Vuong Dinh Hue then asked the secretary to emphasize the content with a mechanism to protect officials who dare to think and dare to do, innovate for the common good.

According to Prof. Nguyen Dinh Cong, currently the Hanoi government has no mechanism, organization or force to protect those officials who dare to think, dare to do, or dare to go out of the framework. He pointed out the fact:

If you are in the Party, you have to follow the party’s regulations and code of conducts. If you cannot accept these things, it is best to leave the party, then can act as a citizen. If they are still in the Party, working in the state and the party agencies, they are forced to fulfill their obligations, but in the Party’s charter, the Party’s discipline says it is forbidden to say against the charter of the Party, Marx -Lenin, it is forbidden to do this or that, if you do, you will be disciplined. “

Mr. Vu Minh Tri has a different perspective:

I think all those who dare to think, dare to do, and dare to take responsibility, they will know how to protect themselves, no one can do anything for them. And the fact that people speak as they say only shows one thing that such people (dare to think, dare to do) are a few in today’s Vietnamese society. So someone like that will immediately attack, will be ostracized, tortured … and they have the need to be protected. I honestly say that out of all the current staff I think that if we burn a torch, there is no one who meets the standards of the common people we want.”

Calling on cadres, civil servants, public employees and party members to create, innovate, dare to think, dare to do is being raised widely recently.

General Secretary and State President Nguyen Phu Trong also said that “in leadership, administration, and implementation, there must be very high determination, great effort, really dynamic and brightly creative, focusing on creating breakthroughs for development; attaches great importance to the quality and practical efficiency of the work and upholds the responsibility of the leader” in his article titled “Prepare and well conduct the 13th National Congress of the Party, bringing the country into a new stage of development.”

However, many observers believe that in the current situation, the officials may dare to think, but the dare to do it  is another difficult issue!

Thoibao.de (Translated)

Source: https://www.rfa.org/vietnamese/in_depth/who-evaluates-and-protects-the-dare-to-think-dare-to-do-officers-11102020145807.html