Introduction
The series “Vietnam: Shocks to the System After the 14th Party Congress” is published by a group of independent analysts and observers who closely track Vietnam’s political, economic, social, foreign policy, defense, and security dynamics in the new circumstances following on the14th Party Congress. Published in installments, the series aims to identify a phase of transition—an evolution in which Vietnam will experience the most profound and comprehensive undertaking of institutional experimentation since the launch of Đổi Mới, a time characterized by high-intensity change, accelerated tempo, and unprecedented levels of risk.
These essays were formulated within the framework of the new US – Vietnam Project of the Caux Round Table, a joint venture of concerned Vietnamese thought leaders and policy experts and Americans engaged with the contemporary unfolding of Vietnamese civilization.
The first essay in the series was written by Mr. Le Than. Mr. Lê Thân is well-known for incarceration as a political prisoner in the infamous prison on Con Son Island off South Vietnam under the Saigon Government during the Vietnam War. In his later years, he served as the Chairman of the Lê Hiếu Đằng Club, a distinguished position that demonstrated his continued and strong commitment to social engagement after the war, so that his standing was not defined solely by his past imprisonment for revolutionary activities.
That Mr. Lê Thân was entrusted with the position of Chairman of the Club reflected several important qualities: he enjoys great respect among former political prisoners and intellectuals; he holds to an independent and forthright stance, avoiding opportunism, and his spirit of “lifelong struggle” before and after 1975. In the former South Vietnam, he struggled as a prisoner in Con Son Prison. After 1975, he continued to struggle for his values and vision by raising his voice as a citizen, guided by moral integrity and conscience.
What makes Mr. Lê Thân particularly distinctive is the historical continuity of being a political prisoner during wartime and then a critical, engaged citizen in peacetime. Not everyone who was imprisoned for revolutionary activities has had the courage to continue speaking out later in life. Mr. Lê Thân has done so with dignity, moderation, and unwavering determination.
First Essay: Institutions as the Bottleneck of All Bottlenecks – How Will Power Be Deployed?
In the aftermath of the 14th National Congress of the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV), observers—both domestic and international—have focused not only on specific individual appointments , but on a more fundamental set of structural challenges: What power structure will govern Vietnam going forward, and can the existing institutional framework absorb, regulate, and adapt to an increasingly concentrated configuration of authority? Or, under the leadership of Tô Lâm, will Vietnam adopt a Law regulating its Communist Party?
After the 14th Party Congress, observers inside and outside Vietnam have focused not only on who was appointed to what position but, more profoundly, on the questions of how will authoritative power be exercised in this new phase of Vietnam’s modern history, and how current institutions, in response to the growing concentration of authoritative power, will be able to bear this burden, exercise oversight, and self-correct when necessary.
The emphatic consolidation of authority in a central fulcrum of leadership raises not only questions about individuals, but—more importantly—about the rules of the game. As personalized authority increasingly overrides traditional mechanisms for collective leadership, where exactly is the fault line between effective governance and risks to institutions? Are the existing designs of Party, State, and oversight bodies still adequate, or are structural limits to their ability to absorb and control such centralized power being exposed?
Given these developments and the very serious questions they bring to our minds, debates over the possible legal legitimation of the role and responsibilities of the Communist Party of Vietnam—under one legal form or another—is no longer just speculative. Such debates reflect a practical necessity: when the exercise of power changes its modality, the subordinate institutional framework must change to accommodate the new reality, or else the exercise of power itself becomes the greatest bottleneck undermining systemic accomplishment
At the center of this debate stands General Secretary Tô Lâm, increasingly portrayed by Western media as the beneficiary of a shift towards a leadership modality of “one-person only”— a sharp divergence from Vietnam’s tradition of collective leadership which, for decades, functioned as an internal risk-reduction mechanism buttressing Vietnam’s political system.
Yet focusing solely on institutionalization of solitary individualism risks missing a deeper reality. The shock to the political system left by the 14th Congress does not implicate any single leader, but plays out in the growing collision between the Communist Party’s actual mode of exercising power and the legal–institutional framework that the Vietnamese state officially claims to honor and implement (1).
“One butt, two chairs”: A choice of system, not just a temporary expedient
International media outlets such as the BBC, Reuters, Bloomberg, and the South China Morning Post have increasingly framed the prospect of Tô Lâm simultaneously holding the positions of General Secretary and State President not as a temporary expedient, but as a structural choice. Their analyses converge on one point: this is an attempt to redesign the locus of power in order to overcome fragmentation within the current system.
This interpretation is not without merit. For years, Vietnam’s political apparatus has been criticized as slow-moving, multilayered, and divided among the Party, the State, and the Government. Major decisions often fall into a “collective responsibility trap,” where accountability is diluted to better hold up the banner of collective leadership.
In this context, the “one butt, two chairs” arrangement is seen as shortening channels of decision-making and consolidating authority around a clearly defined center. The core institutional problem, however, is not whether power is centralized, but rather this: Vietnam has never designed a system of legal accountability and oversight proportionate to having power concentrated in an individual.
Put differently, power is being concentrated far more rapidly than it is being subordinated to governance.
The National Assembly: Rubber-stamping, not Decision-making
The upcoming session of the National Assembly—expected to elect Tô Lâm as State President—is accurately perceived by international observers. It is not a forum for debate over who should have authoritative power but only serves as procedural formality assenting to decisions already made.
This accurately reflects the Assembly’s current institutional role: it does not supervise , lacks the right to veto or to delay, and it cannot decide on the uses of power. The National Assembly neither determines who holds power nor defines the scope of that power; it merely ratifies what has been arranged by Party leaders
The deeper issue here is not the mere formalism of parliamentary proceedings, but a structural contradiction between constitutional principles and operational reality. While Vietnam’s Constitution proclaims the state to be “of the people, by the people, and for the people,” the actual manipulation of authoritative power occurs almost entirely within the Communist Party’s decision-making apparatus.
Thus, the National Assembly instead of activating power delegated by the people, has become a connector that legalizes decisions made by a political organization standing above the Law.
The Communist Party: From Ruling Party to an Organization Outside the Law
After more than half a century of comprehensive control, the Vietnamese Communist Party continues to operate with many characteristics of a revolutionary party—or even a closed organization—rather than as a transparent governing party within a modern rule-of-law state.
The most consequential decisions regarding personnel, policy, and national strategy are made in closed Party forums, then subsequently legalized by state institutions. This produces a legal paradox: an organization that exercises supreme authority over the state and society does not exist as a legal entity accountable either before the law or to citizens.
Under Article 4 of the Constitution, the Communist Party leads the state; yet the Party itself cannot be sued, lacks civil legal personality, and bears neither criminal nor civil liability as an organization. When a policy leads to serious consequences, responsibility therefore can only be assigned to individuals or state agencies—while the organization that made the ultimate decision remains free of all accountability mechanisms.
For years, intellectuals have proposed expeditiously enacting a Law applicable to the activities of the Communist Party. Such proposals have never gained traction, precisely because such codification of Article 4 of the Constitution would, in principle, subject the Party to oversight by the Government, the National Assembly, and the courts.
Yet such oversight is precisely the foundational requirement of any rule-of-law society. And it is precisely why this issue remains the institutional bottleneck of all bottlenecks, with no clear indication that it will be resolved.
This unresolved “shadow” of rogue autonomy renders any concentration of power the more dangerous: the more power is centralized outside the Law, the more glaring the accountability vacuum becomes. To mitigate this risk, a Law applicable to the Communist Party would need to define, at minimum: the Party’s legal status; the basis of its legitimacy; principles governing its accountability and oversight; boundaries between Party, State, and society; internal democracy; and the Party’s relationship with civil society (2).
Administrative Restructuring and Systemic Retrenchment
Following the 14th Congress, the important question is no longer merely who occupies which positions, but how much restructuring can the system tolerate. The growing “underground discontent” within the bureaucracy does not constitute political opposition, but rather operational frustration: unclear lines of responsibility, legal and other risks to bureaucrats even when procedures are followed, and accusations of inertia when action is avoided.
These are textbook symptoms of worrisome institutional bottlenecks. When power is centralized without clear responsibility frameworks, a subordinate bureaucratic system’s natural responses are retrenchment and risk avoidance. But, if discipline is tightened and personnel reshuffled without addressing legal foundations, governance effectiveness will decline rather than improve, increasing the risk of administrative paralysis.
The best structure: institutions or persons?
The key question posed by international observers is whether this appointment to two offices will apply only in the case of Tô Lâm, or whether it will evolve into a more permanent institutional arrangement.
If it remains just a one-time scenario , the system may tolerate it as an exception. But if it marks the beginning of a new, long-term, governance model, Vietnam must confront a question it has never fully answered: who oversees the leader when power is concentrated in a single individual within a system where the Party itself stands outside all legal accountability?
To date, there have been no clear signals of constitutional revision or the creation of new oversight mechanisms. As a result, power consolidation is proceeding far faster than the creation of institutional checks and balances—a formula historically associated with the accumulation of systemic d risk.
Conclusion: An Institutional Question Without an Answer
This article doe snot revolve around Tô Lâm as an individual. It revolves around a single axial development: power is being consolidated rapidly, while legitimacy, legal status, and accountability mechanisms remain stagnant—or in some respects, have regressed.
The “one butt, two chairs” arrangement’, the National Assembly’s role of only formalism, bureaucratic retrenchment and constitutional contradictions over the source of authority, are not isolated phenomena. They are manifestations of one signal institutional bottleneck.
The final question of this essay is therefore not whether Tô Lâm wields sufficient power, but whether the system possesses enough capacity to absorb that power without paralyzing itself—or triggering a crisis of legitimacy. And the core question beneath all others remains: will Tô Lâm dare to breakup this heavy-handed institutional bottleneck by permitting adoption of a Law governing the Communist Party of Vietnam? (3)
References
(1) BBC Vietnamese: 90 Years of the CPV: What Legal Basis for Its Existence and Rule? https://www.bbc.com/vietnamese/vietnam-51348557
(2) Luật Khoa Magazine: Petition 72 and the Public Constitution: Citizens and Constitutional Participation https://luatkhoa.com/2025/03/kien-nghi-72-va-hien-phap-dai-chung-khi-cong-dan-tham-gia-lap-hien/
(3) BBC Vietnamese: Challenging the State to Debate the Constitution
https://www.bbc.com/vietnamese/vietnam/2013/11/131117_vn_constitution_petition72_aims
Coming up in Part 2:
The Economy – When Institutional Shockwaves Begin to Spill into the Market
(Author: Dr. Nguyễn Xuân Nghĩa)