Vietnam Communist Party plenum evaluates key personnel

The ninth plenum of the 12th Party Central Committee will discuss a personnel plan for the committee’s 2021-2026 tenure.

Leaders of Party units from local to central level have already reviewed and assessed officials they consider eligible candidates for membership of the committee.

Those under 55 years of age should be secretary or vice secretary of the Party's units in their cities or provinces, or vice ministers. Those under 50 should be secretaries of district Party units.

A list of candidates has been submitted to the Politburo, the Party's decision-making body, who has selected more than 200 people for the current Party Central Committee to evaluate.

"We have to be absolutely fair and do not let people with skewed political and ethical standards to enter," Party chief Nguyen Phu Trong said at the meeting Tuesday.

The buildup of the new Central Committe will be followed by personnel decisions for the Politburo and the selection of top positions of the Party, Trong said.

The ongoing plenum will run a vote of confidence for 21 sitting members of the Politburo and Secretariat of the Party.

Each member will get a "high confidence," "moderate confidence" or "low confidence" vote, based on political qualities, ethics, lifestyle and practical capabilities.

A person receiving more than half of the votes as "low confidence" will have little chance of promotion while those with two thirds of the votes as such may lose his/her current post.

This is the second confidence vote held for the Party's key members. Results from the first one, held in January 2015, were not published.

Analysts have expected new personnel for the Party's Central Committee since the plenum in May, but no decisions have been made.

Then, Dinh La Thang, former Ho Chi Minh City Party chief and Politburo member, had received long jail terms for violations that happened when he was chairman of state-owned PetroVietnam between 2006 and 2011, while Dinh The Huynh, who was the de facto number two person of the Communist Party, left his positions as Executive Secretary of the Party's Secretariat and Chairman of the Party's Central Theoretical Council due to ill health.

Huynh will not be subject to the confidence vote as he's on sick leave.