The 12th Congress of the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV) in the 2016-20 convened 15 plenums with many important documents discussed.

The CPV's 12th Congress gathers 1507 delegates. Photo: Vietnam News Agency

According to Nguyen Duc Ha, a former official from the Central Organization Commission, half of the total sessions focused on preparations for the 13th congress.

From the 2nd to 7th plenums, the CPV’s Central Committee discussed resolutions on socio-economic strategy with specific tasks for each period of time while the remaining sessions highlighted the preparations, including personnel issues for the next congress, Mr Ha told Zing.

At the Party’s 8th plenum in October 2018, five interim sub-committees were formed to draft the key documents for the 13th Party Congress. The 11th plenum in October 19 reviewed the four key documents before they were sent to Party congresses at lower levels for feedback. The 13th plenum in September 2020 debated and endorsed the documents before they are released for public consultation, and addresses personnel matters. The 14th plenum in January 2020 resolved document drafting and personnel matters.

Starting from the lowest grassroots level up to the provincial level, the drafts were discussed by respective Party assemblies which also elect members of party committees in the locality. The provincial congresses will elect delegates to the national congress.

The remaining plenums focused on finalizing the key documents and the lists of delegates to the Central Committee, the Politburo and the Secretariat.

Despite being a tightly-scripted process, there could still be last-minute changes to the listed delegates just before the national congress, according to the ISEAS–Yusof Ishak Institute. The issue was reached at the 15th plenum that took place on January 16-17.

Regarding documents of the plenums, four key documents are slated to be tabled at the 13th Party Congress comprising: the Political Report of the Party; the Assessment Report on the 10-year Strategy of Socio-economic Development (2011-20); the Strategy of Socio-economic Development (2021-30) that includes a Roadmap and Tasks for the initial five year period from 2021-25; and the Assessment Report of Party Building and Statutory Implementation of the 12th CPV Congress term (2016-20).

The 13th plenum of the 12th Congress reviewed and provided further comments on the four key documents. Thereafter, the documents were released for public feedback. The public consultation period usually lasted a few months, from the second half of September till end 2020. The various sub-committees then reviewed the feedback and valid ones were incorporated into the four key documents. Eventually, a final round of discussion and debate will be held at the 13th Congress.

Of the four documents, the most important is the Political Report which takes stock on Vietnam’s political and socio-economic performance under the Party’s leadership over the past five years. It further sets out the Party’s goals and objectives over the next term.