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500 Shameless Buffoons of Vietnam |
Ðằng Vân
Point of View
Week Ending 20 May 2007
In the aftermath of the 20 May 2007 congressional elections, the entire world shall have 500 shameless buffoons sitting in the Vietnamese National Congress pretending to represent the Vietnamese people. They shall, by international political standards, behave in the same way buffoons behave in a circus, under the amused eyes of the rest of the civilized world.
But the people of Vietnam shall have 500 ogres feeding on their flesh, blood and the nation’s treasury.
The reasons are as follows:
According to VietnamNet (19 May 2007) of the 880 candidates for election to the 12th National Congress, there were 154 candidates outside the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV) or 17.5%. This information was provided by the Central Committee of the Fatherland Front (a front organization of the CPV). 165 of these candidates belonged to the central authorities and 715 to local authorities. 291 were women, 169 ethnic minorities, 143 stood for re-election, 232 were young and 30 stood for election of their own volition without the sponsorship of the CPV.
Even before the results were made official, no less a buffoon than the president of the Fatherland Front Pham The Duyet declared:
“According to me the election has proceeded successfully, very well, with a clear democratic atmosphere. Despite a few personal complaints from a few locations, but overall the people have exercised their vote fully.” (VietnamNet 21 May 07)
Another buffoon, the officer in charge of the National Congress Office and Secretary General of the Electoral Office Bui Ngoc Thanh assessed that the election was a great success with voter-turnout of about 97%.
He said:
“This time the people’s consciousness is very high. Voting by proxy has been minimized” (VietnamNet 20 May07)
Upon closer analysis, the election arithmetic is as follows:
There were 880 candidates and 500 seats to be won.
There are 182 electorates across Vietnam resulting in about 2.7 seats per electorate.
If each seat has 2 competing candidates there must be at least 1000 candidates.
If each seat has 3 competing candidates there must be at least 1500 candidates.
In the present circumstances it appears there were at least 120 seats in which there was only 1 candidate and 380 seats where there were only 2 candidates.
In addition, although there were 17.5% candidates from outside the CPV, only 3.4% were independent candidates.
Therefore, there was a 96.6% chance of each and every candidate being members of the CPV or stooges of the CPV.
Although the list of successful candidates is yet to be published, I can bet my bottom dollar that all the 160 members of the Central Committee of the CPV, including 14 Politburo members, shall figure prominently on the list of successful candidates.
Such is democracy as proclaimed by the glorious Socialist Republic of Vietnam and celebrated by the deliriously free and happy people of this proud nation.
Thus not only the government, but the national treasury and the entire Vietnamese people are the private possessions of the CPV. It has power under the current constitution to do whatever it wishes with the people.
Given the information revolution of the 21ST century, how on earth can any persons in their right minds, stage such election gimmicks and hope that their own people and all the peoples of the entire world would continue to be duped by them?
Yet the so-called and self-styled General Secretary Nong Duc Manh, Chairman of Congress Nguyen Phu Trong, Police Minister Le Hong Anh, State President Nguyen Minh Triet and PM Nguyen Tan Dung continue to conduct themselves as though the entire world has not moved one inch since the times of Stalin, Hitler, Mao-Tse-Tung of old.
Robert Mugabe, leaders of the Burmese Junta, Colonel Muammar Al-Gaddafi, the Royal Family of Saudi-Arabia and all the fundamentalist Ayatollahs in the Moslem world should come to Vietnam and learn a trick or two about how to hold on to absolute power while keeping up with appearances.
I have a realistic proposition to make to Messrs. Nong Duc Manh and Company:
To implement your Venerable Uncle Ho’s example of thrift and economy, why don’t you cut the crap and dispense with national elections forever? At least this would show that you are a bunch of highway robbers with some fortitude, instead of the hypocritical and infantile election gimmicks, that our people are so tired of, and the international community can only regard as despicable?
If you have the courage to dispense with such election gimmicks, when the time of reckoning finally arrives- and it will, as night follows day- the people might just be more forgiving of you for your fortitude.
Ðằng Vân
21 May 2007