By Patrick Boehler Dec. 27, 2012 – Vietnam’s ruling Communist Party is not looking back on a good year. The country’s economy is in trouble; the authoritarian leadership is split; and what appear to be rival Communist Party factions, seeking to rouse the dissenting voices of social media for their own ends, have unleashed a wave of online protests that has become increasingly difficult to contain.
HOANG DINH NAM / AFP / GETTY
Vietnam’s Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung (C) smiles as he walks behind Vietnamese Communist Party’s Secretary General Nguyen Phu Trong (L) and President Truong Tan Sang (R) toward the late president Ho Chi Minh’s mausoleum prior to the opening of the National Assembly’s second annual session in Hanoi on October 22, 2012.
Over the last year, blogs purporting to feature insider dirt on Vietnam’s ruling elite have caused an avalanche of criticism against those close to Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung. One blog, Quanlambao (Officials Doing Journalism), appeared in the spring, publishing allegations of murky ties between big business and members of the Prime Minister’s family. Quanlambao alleged, for example, that the Prime Minister’s 34-year-old daughter Nguyen Thanh Phuong, an investment manager with a Swiss university degree, was bidding for contracts with disgraced tycoon Nguyen Duc Kien, who was arrested on corruption charges in August. Phuong vehemently denies any impropriety, and the attacks have been so virulent that Tuong Vu, associate professor of political science at the University of Oregon, speculates they must have been “launched by a faction or some interests who want the Prime Minister to go away.” Continue reading
Defend the Defenders 