VietNamNet Bridge - With what is happening in staffing at provincial party committees, one can see that the strongest reform in many years is being carried out. A lot of young cadres have been appointed to important positions.

 

Nguyen Thanh Nghi, 39, has been appointed as the Kien Giang provincial Party Committee's Secretary

Many of the newly appointed cadres are relatives of the people who held or now hold important positions at the local or central party committees.

This should be seen as a positive phenomenon for three reasons.

First, this changes society’s thoughts about the foundation for development. It will be good if Vietnam has many talented and successful people, no matter which families they were born into.

The development of a nation or a community is proportional to the percentage of people who have conditions. Or the society creates favorable conditions for talented people to achieve success. All move ahead together.

In Vietnamese thoughts, those who can gain success, though they were born into poor families, or started their business from zero, will be praised. Meanwhile, this will not be ‘a success story’ if people were born into good families and have good conditions to develop.

This unreasonable viewpoint may hinder the development of the society. 

In fact, it will be difficult for everyone to become rich and successful. The favorable conditions someone has will only help them a little. Meanwhile, they can only rely on their capabilities to get ahead and gain success.

The development of every society is based on a high number of people who have capabilities and gain success, not on a small number of such people. This can be obtained if there are many people who have initial favorable conditions.

The people who can succeed despite their initial unfavorable conditions just account for a small proportion. The people can act as sources of inspiration in society, while they cannot act as the foundation for the society’s development, merely because they are the minority.

This can be proved by human beings’ history.

As such, while Vietnam applauds excellent students who were born into poor families, it also needs to encourage those who were born into well-off families to gain bigger success.

People who gain success should be respected, no matter where their starting points are. It would be better not to question the wealth of someone and try to find out if there are dubious things behind their wealth. It would be better to envy successful people and predict when they will go downhill, and not question about the origins of young successful people.

Of course, these things can be done only when social justice is recognized by people.

The world has witnessed many ‘powerful families’, including the Bush and Kennedy families in the US. Most recently, mass media reported that Justin Trudeau, the son of the late Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, will become the Prime Minister of the country, which has the highest welfare level in the world, at the age of 43. 

Second, this is a bold decision.

Nguyen Xuan Anh has been appointed as the Da Nang City's Party Committee's Secretary

The Vietnamese Communist Party’s glory and prestige have been built based on its success in leading people in the struggle against invaders for independence. The prestige has also been gained with the decision to carry out doi moi (renovation) which has helped Vietnam escape crisis and become an average-income country after three decades.

However, if comparing other regional countries which had the same starting point as Vietnam in the 1950s, Vietnam still lags behind. The Communist Party still owes people as it promised to lead the nation to happiness and wealth.

The decision on changing the way of putting staff into key positions is a bold step taken by the Party. One has every reason to hope that the cadres who are promoted to the important positions will fulfill the promise. If not, the Party’s prestige will be affected.

Third, the officials promoted to key positions will have to show their real capabilities.

The problems in finding the way for Vietnam to become more developed are attributed to the fact that leaders in the last decades had to shift from fighting to economic management, and were not equipped with basic economic knowledge.

Meanwhile, the young cadres who have been appointed to key positions in the government apparatus are quite different. Most of them have received advanced education and finished the highest education levels.

They have favorable conditions to work. They are equipped with necessary knowledge and they are given necessary support.

The next-generation leaders will have no other choice than proving their abilities. In order to do that, every individual needs to become a ‘magnet’ who attracts people with have high capabilities and desire for progress to join forces to implement difficult but glorious tasks.

Huynh The Du