From: zts_duong@hg.uleth.ca
Newsgroups: soc.culture.vietnamese
Subject: [POL] Letting off steam
Date: 12 Aug 92 16:28:14 GMT
Reply-To: zts_duong@hg.uleth.ca
Organization: University of Lethbridge

LETTING OFF STEAM

By Murray Hiebert ( F.E.E.R July 30, 1992)


Loudspeakers crackled to life throughout the Vietnamese capital shortly after
daybreak on 19 July calling on people to get out and vote for their new
National Assembly.  The day before, organised groups of children marched around
the city beating out a rhythm on their drums to attract attention to their
posters announcing the elections.

Despite the hoopla, people in Hanoi demonstrated little excitement for the
polling, even though officials insisted the elections were most democratic ever
as a result of the communist party's six year reform programme.  "In this
election, the quality of candidates is higher and democracy has been
broadened," party chief Do Muoi told journalists after he cast his ballot.

But not everyone agreed.  In the early hours of election day, Hanoi police
defused a large bomb, presumably planted by people disgruntled with the
government, near a residential area for high-ranking officials.

Some 601 candidates ran for 395 seats, slightly fewer contestants for each slot
than in the 1987 elections when 829 candidates had contested 496 posts.  Only
109 candidates were members of the outgoing assembly, which means that at least 
three quarters of the new body will not have served before.

Forty-four people tried to run as independent candidates under the terms of
the new country's new election law, but two only survived.  The other withdrew
their names or were disqualified under a rigorous screening process established
by the party-controlled Vietnam Father Front - a mass organisation that
includes labour, youth, religious and women's groups - which managed the
elections.

The two remaining independent candidates were the deputy principal of a school
and a director of an import-export company in the central Vietnamese provinces
of Quang Ngai and Ha Tinh.  The businessman was reportedly pressed to withdraw
his candidacy in the last days of the campaign, but he refused to step down.

None of the voters interviewed at several polling stations around Hanoi said
they have met any of the candidates before the elections.  They said they had
based their decisions on who to vote for on the brief biographies of the
candidates posted at the polling stations.

The campaign was a subdued affair with meetings between candidates and voters
open mainly to invited " voter representatives," who were largely retired civil
servants and soldiers.  The biggest change from previous elections was that
people who were invited to these meeting were free to launch surprisingly
blunt attacks on the government.

"Corruption has become universal and it's so serious it could cause political
instability," warned a retired army officer in a meeting with five candidates
in the Dong Da surburb of Hanoi attended by several foreign diplomats and
journalists.

"We're losing confidence in the government because of growing social inequality
and corruption," declared the veteran, who said he had spent most of his life
fighting for Vietnam's independence from France and the US.  "Our communist
party should draw lessons from the mistakes made by the Soviet party."

For nearly four hours, the voters, who were provided with free cigarettes and
tea by the organizers, pummelled the candidates with demands for more jobs for
the district's unemployed young people, a cut in the price of electricity which
had been doubled in March and better benefits for retired soldiers and civil
servants.  One participants charged that many high-ranking officials spend on
just one dinner as much as veterans get in retirement benefits in a whole year.

"In the past, when you left your house you met a hero," a voter said, repeating
one of former president Ho Chi Minh's famous wartime sayings.  "Now when you
leave your house you meet social inequality," he declared, referring to the
growing gap between the rich and the poor in the wake of the party's drive
towards a free market economy.

"We still don't have real democracy," another veteran argued.  "We have only
two liberties - we're free to avoid paying taxes and to published "black
books," he jibbed, alluding to the growing number of sex and crime thrillers
published during the last few years.




---------------------
Typos are mine

Ba(`ng La(ng
Newsgroups: soc.culture.vietnamese