General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong chairs meeting of the 14th Party Congress Personnel Subcommittee

Attending the meeting were members of the Subcommittee, including Politburo members: President Vo Van Thuong; Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh; National Assembly Chairman Vuong Dinh Hue; Standing member of the Secretariat, Head of the Central Organization Committee Truong Thi Mai; Secretary of the Party Central Committee, Head of the Central Inspection Committee Tran Cam Tu. Also attending the meeting were members of the Working Group of the Personnel Subcommittee.

The Subcommittee listened to the Working Group present the contents related to the Personnel Subcommittee; Subcommittee members discussed and gave opinions.

Factors ensuring the success of the Congress

Concluding the meeting, emphasizing the position, significance and importance of the work of preparing personnel for the Congress, General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong, Head of the Subcommittee, stated that, along with the preparation and implementation of Party congresses at all levels, our Party is currently preparing for the 14th National Congress of the Party, scheduled to be held in the first quarter of 2026. At the 8th Conference (October 2023), the Central Executive Committee decided to establish 5 subcommittees to prepare for the 14th Party Congress (Documents Subcommittee, Socio-Economic Subcommittee, Party Charter Subcommittee, Personnel Subcommittee and Organization Subcommittee serving the Congress). The two most important contents of each Party Congress are discussing and deciding on the Party's political guidelines and tasks (referred to as approving documents) and electing the Party's leadership bodies (referred to as personnel work). These two contents are closely related to each other, both must be well prepared, especially the preparation of Congress personnel has an extremely important position and meaning, is a factor ensuring the success of the Congress and the successful implementation of the Congress's resolutions.

The General Secretary emphasized that the Central Executive Committee is the highest leadership body between two Party Congresses, the combat staff, the core of political leadership and the center of solidarity and high unity of the entire Party and the entire nation. This is a team of strategic-level cadres, the elite of the Party, requiring them to be truly steadfast, have enough courage, qualities, intelligence and high prestige to solve strategic tasks, promptly, correctly and effectively handle complex situations related to the cause of building, developing and protecting the country, and the survival of the regime. Therefore, it is necessary to affirm and deeply understand the position and significance of this extremely important work, not only for organizing a Party Congress but also for this work of strategic significance closely linked to the fate of the Party, the survival of the regime and the development of the country.

To address the country's important issues in the coming time, the General Secretary requested that the Politburo and the Central Executive Committee must prepare well to present to the Congress for discussion and decision on the personnel of the 14th Central Committee, ensuring the success of the Congress and victory in the implementation of the Congress Resolution. The Central Executive Committee, the Politburo, the Secretariat, and the entire political system must work with a very high sense of responsibility, with great determination and effort, with a truly fair, objective, and scientific approach, putting the interests of the nation, the Party, and the people above all else.

Solve the relationship between quantity and quality well

To prepare personnel for the 14th Party Congress, the General Secretary pointed out that the most important issue is to correctly identify the requirements for building the Central Executive Committee, with the core being the Politburo, the Secretariat, and key leaders of the Party. The 14th Central Executive Committee must be a truly united, clean, strong, and highly unified collective in will and action. At the same time, it must have a firm political stance, pure moral qualities, and be steadfast in the goals of national independence and socialism; have a strategic vision; have intelligence, innovative thinking, and creativity; represent the entire Party in terms of fighting spirit and discipline; be closely attached to the people, gather solidarity and unity within the entire Party and the entire people; and have sufficient prestige and capacity to lead the country in the new development stage.

The 14th Central Executive Committee needs to have a reasonable number and structure to ensure comprehensive leadership, increase the number of Party Central Committee members in key positions, areas and fields of work; ensure inheritance, stability, innovation and continuous development.

The introduction of personnel, in general, must be based on planning; upholding principles, rules, regulations, promoting responsibility, democracy, publicity, transparency, and objectivity in evaluating, introducing, and selecting personnel to participate in the Central Executive Committee, Politburo, Secretariat, and key leadership positions of the Party and State in the coming term...

Members of the 14th Central Executive Committee must truly be exemplary comrades of the Party in terms of political mettle, moral qualities and working capacity; ensure the general standards of cadres; must have both virtue and talent, in which virtue is the root...

The General Secretary and Head of the Subcommittee noted that it is necessary to calculate and clearly define the structure and quantity of the Central Executive Committee, and properly resolve the relationship between quantity and quality. The Central Executive Committee needs to have a reasonable structure to ensure comprehensive leadership, inheritance and development; but it is not necessary that every field or industry must have people participating in the Central Executive Committee if they do not meet the standards; and the standards should not be lowered because of the structure...

In the structure of the 14th Central Executive Committee, the General Secretary emphasized that it is necessary to pay attention to ensuring a reasonable proportion of young cadres, female cadres, cadres from ethnic minorities; a number of scientists, artists, leaders of some large state-owned corporations and groups who are qualified and eligible to participate in the Central Executive Committee. Drawing on experience from previous terms, determining the number of members of the 14th Central Executive Committee should be based mainly on the requirements, tasks and demands of the situation, based on the requirements of comprehensive leadership for the localities and fields of work, especially ensuring quality and standards, not purely chasing quantity.

Ensure true fairness, transparency and objectivity

To do this important work well, in terms of ideology, guiding principles, methods and ways of doing things, the General Secretary and Head of the Subcommittee requested that personnel work must be done well from the Party Congresses at all levels to contribute to preparing personnel for the 14th Party Congress. Party committees, Party organizations, agencies and units, especially the heads and places where there are cadres participating in the planning of strategic-level cadres recommended to join the 14th Central Executive Committee, must be responsible to the Personnel Subcommittee, the Politburo and the Central Executive Committee for the personnel they propose and recommend.

Relevant agencies and organizations, first of all the Politburo and the Central Executive Committee, must work hard to prepare and must determine that this is an especially important task, a "key" task of "keys", related to the survival of the Party, the fate of the regime, and the development and strength of the country.

Each agency, locality, and each cadre directly involved in the preparation work must fully and deeply understand their responsibilities, wholeheartedly and wholeheartedly take care of the common work, must put the interests of the Party, the country, and the people above all else; must conduct a summary, draw lessons, point out the advantages, results as well as shortcomings and limitations of previous terms, especially of the XIII term, to have more basis to propose directions, requirements, and tasks for building the cadre team of this XIV term.

Personnel work in general and congress personnel work in particular are of special importance, because they are related to people, and are "human work". Therefore, the General Secretary and Head of the Subcommittee requested that the Congress personnel work must be carried out according to a strict, scientific and consistent process, ensuring true fairness, transparency, objectivity, and especially "having a discerning eye" in evaluating, introducing, and selecting. Taking the standards of political qualities, ethics, lifestyle, work efficiency, and personal and family prestige as the main measure. It must be based on clearly defining standards and criteria to properly evaluate cadres, select the right people, arrange the right work, and assign them to the right place, creating a team, a collective that is truly "in tune", united, unified, and powerful.

The General Secretary and Head of the Subcommittee noted that it is necessary to truly promote democracy in discovering and introducing personnel, along with clearly defining the authority and responsibility of relevant collectives and individuals, and strictly implementing the principle of democratic centralism, promoting the role and responsibility of Party committees, Party organizations and leaders; opposing localism, familiarity, "cronyism", "group interests"; avoiding simple, arbitrary and unprincipled ways of doing things. It is necessary to take all measures to resolutely not put into leadership agencies those who are not worthy or qualified, especially those who have made mistakes or have degraded in quality and morality, are involved in corruption, seeking positions and power, are arrogant, patriarchal, flattering superiors, bullying subordinates, covering up criminals, causing disunity, and negatively affecting the Party's reputation. It is necessary to regularly inspect, supervise and urge. The way to do it is to be cautious, to complete each step and each stage, following a strict process; Do things with certainty, do the Central Executive Committee personnel first, then the Politburo and Secretariat personnel, and finally the key leadership personnel. If there are steps that need to be done simultaneously, they must be considered closely and firmly, ensuring consistency and scientificity...

The General Secretary and Head of the Subcommittee requested that members of the Personnel Subcommittee and the Subcommittee's Working Group must have a firm grasp of their functions, tasks, powers, and strictly comply with the principles, regimes, regulations, and working style. Members of the Working Group must be truly trustworthy, absolutely loyal, honest, transparent, impartial, and objective cadres, especially must be very alert and clear-headed, "don't see chickens as hawks", "don't see red as ripe"; absolutely maintain principles, working relationships, and closely coordinate with relevant agencies and individuals; fight against negative manifestations right in responsible cadres, Congress delegates, and members of the Subcommittee and the Working Group. The Working Group must have strict and synchronous regulations and rules, ensuring the correct implementation of the principles of democratic centralism, objectivity, and impartiality under the leadership of the Party.

The General Secretary noted that in the process of selecting, arranging, and assigning specific personnel, it is necessary to unify the viewpoint of not being too perfectionist or too absolutist. The important thing is to know how to distinguish and accurately assess the nature and extent of strengths and weaknesses so as not to choose the wrong person; there must be a way to arrange and assign personnel appropriately to promote the strengths, limit the weaknesses of each member, complement each other, create a strong team, a relatively complete leadership collective...

General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong, Head of the Subcommittee, emphasized that it is necessary to build a strong Central Executive Committee, a strong Politburo, a strong Secretariat, truly united and highly unified around the leader to be able to shoulder the glorious but very heavy responsibility of leading the completion of the historical mission, political tasks, organizing the entire Party, the entire army, and the entire people to strive, overcome all difficulties and hardships, build our Party increasingly clean and strong; our country increasingly developed; our people increasingly prosperous and happy, worthy of the trust, love and expectations of the entire Party and the entire people.