📝OP-ED: Non-local leadership – Both challenge and opportunity for reform

A corner of Hanoi (Illustrative photo: VNA)

Hanoi (VNA) – In Conclusion No. 201, issued on October 31, the Politburo and the Secretariat outlined requirements for the provincial and municipal Party congresses for the 2025–2030 term. They stated that by December 15, all positions of provincial People’s Committee chairpersons, heads of inspection commissions, and chief inspectors must be filled by officials who are not from the local area.

In Vietnam’s political system, the chairperson of the provincial-level People’s Committee is responsible for guiding local development and ensuring the quality of governance. The head of the provincial Party Committee’s Inspection Commission is tasked with maintaining discipline within the Party, while the chief inspector is responsible for upholding integrity in the administrative apparatus. The capacity to make fair, impartial decisions, free from group interests, is significantly improved when these positions are filled by officials who are not local.

This decision demonstrates the Party’s strategic vision in personnel management and its determination to ensure integrity within local organisational structures.

Previously, the Politburo also issued a strict regulation to prevent “favouritism” in personnel work — Regulation No. 114-QD/TW dated July 11, 2023, on controlling power and preventing corruption and negative phenomena in personnel management.

Regulation No. 114 clearly defines acts of abusing or misusing power and authority as using one’s prestige or influence - or that of family members - to affect decisions, instructions, recommendations, or voting according to personal will; or allowing family members or relatives to exploit one’s position, authority, or reputation to manipulate or interfere in any stage of the personnel process.

However, to say that the Politburo’s requirement to “de-localise” leadership positions is merely to prevent “family-based officialdom” would only capture part of the purpose. The more important aspect is to train and challenge officials to grow through experience across different regions of the country, thereby cultivating leaders with a mindset “for all the people,” not just for a single locality.

Officials, particularly young leaders, can become stagnant and complacent if they stay too long in familiar working environments. To fully develop their potential, they need to be challenged and provided with opportunities to grow in a "new homeland." It is through facing hardships that true success is forged.

However, transferred officials often face numerous difficulties in a new locality, such as unfamiliarity with local culture and psychology, unwritten norms, or the lack of an effective advisory team to initiate their work. They may even encounter subtle resistance or isolation.

Therefore, in addition to the individual’s capability, mettle, and vision, it is equally important to improve mechanisms and policies that create a supportive working environment — one that protects and encourages the spirit of innovation, decisiveness, and willingness to confront entrenched interests or silent opposition in unfamiliar settings. Only with such backing can they confidently address long-standing “bottlenecks.”

At the same time, rotated leaders must be given sufficient time, typically 3 to 5 years, to turn determination into tangible results. Hasty demands for quick achievements should be avoided, as they may lead to the problem of being “ripe on the outside, but not yet mature within.”

To select the right officials, those with integrity, vision, and the ability to serve as a nucleus for unity in their new localities, the evaluation process must be accurate and objective, in accordance with the spirit and content of the Politburo’s Regulation No. 377-QD/TW, dated October 8, 2025. The decree concerns the decentralisation of personnel management, as well as the planning, appointment, nomination, temporary suspension, resignation, and dismissal of officials.

The rotation of provincial-level leaders should also be linked with the two-tier local administration model, in which the awareness and decisive actions of the head of the local administration play an increasingly important role.

As of early November, among the 34 chairpersons of the People’s Committees of cities and provinces, 20 are rotated officials, and the plan is expected to be fully completed by December 15.

Alongside the role of the leaders, there must also be a profound shift in awareness throughout the entire political system, especially among officials, Party members, and citizens in provincial-level administrative units. In reality, provincial-level Party Committee secretaries or People’s Committee chairpersons are well-trained, experienced officials who have matured through multiple positions and responsibilities. Therefore, their appointment also represents an opportunity for the local administrative system to “renew itself.”

When provincial leaders possess a vision that transcends local boundaries and a nationwide strategic mindset, they form a valuable source of potential high-level personnel, shaped through practice in diverse environments and circumstances. This gives the people greater confidence in the “most crucial of the crucial” stage - the personnel work - which determines the effective implementation of the Party’s resolutions and ensures that the country advances firmly into a new era./.

VNA