Thayer Consultancy Background Briefing:

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Vietnam Reinstates Vote of
Confidence for Leaders
Carlyle A. Thayer
June 13, 2017

[client name deleted]

In what appears to be a surprise move, it has been reported in the Vietnamese media
that the National Assembly will reinstate the vote of confidence for high=level
government officials next year after a five-year hiatus.
http://news.chinhphu.vn/Home/Legislature-to-cast-confidence-votes-on-senior-leaders-in-
2018/20176/30890.vgp

Q1. Does this move come as any surprise to you? What do you make of the timing of
reinstating the vote of confidence?
ANSWER: This decision is unexpected. More to the point why wasnt the vote of
confidence not held in 201? This was a sensitive issue as in 2015 Vietnam began
completing preparations for the twelfth national party congress and various unofficial
Vietnamese-language blog sites revealed information an internal party vote of
confidence on various high-level leaders.
The timing is appropriate because the twelfth party congress is over and the new
ministers have already served one year in office. Vietnams political system is stable
and a vote of confidence in high-level officials by the National Assembly will
strengthen the transparency to the general public of how these officials are
performing. This is important following the governments handling of the dead fish
incident last year (April-October 2016).
Q2. Why do you think Vietnam opts to reinstate the vote? What lessons should
Vietnam learn from its past experiences?
ANSWER: In a one-party state it is important to get accurate and reliable feedback on
the performance of high party leaders who hold position as government ministers.
The National Assembly has a duty to regularly review the performance of its leaders.
National Assembly deputies are best able to judge the performance of their peers who
hold ministerial-level positions. In 2018, the National Assembly will enter the second
year of its five-year term in office. A vote of confidence in the middle of this term
would be an appropriate moment to take stock. A vote of confidence will validate
those ministers who are viewed as successful, and a vote of confidence will be a signal
to other high-level officials that they need to lift their game, that is improve.
 2

From past experience the question that arises is how to evaluate the results. To an
outsider, the three levels of confidence low confidence, confidence and high
confidence were confusing. What is the best measure of performance? This
consultancy conducted a detailed analysis of previous National Assembly votes of
confidence. There are three ways of judging the outcome: (1) the percentage of high
confidence votes received (2) the percentage of high confidence plus confidence votes
received and (3) the percentage of weighted high confidence votes plus confidence
votes (high confidence votes are given more value than confidence votes).
The vote of confidence was designed to single out those who received less than fifty
percent approval. But a better measure would be to apply a statistical analysis by using
the mean (or average) score and standard deviation. As noted above, the National
Assembly would have to decide which of the three measures (low confidence,
confidence, high confidence) was the best measure of performance. Once this was
decided then the mean (or average) score should be computed. Ministers could be
judged by those who scored above the mean and those who scored below the mean
The standard deviation is a statistical measure of how data is grouped around the
mean (or average). Typically, around 69% of data is grouped within one standard
deviation of the mean. Any high-level official falling in this range should be judged as
performing satisfactorily. Any high-level official falling above one standard deviation
should be judged as outstanding. And, any high-level official falling below one
standard deviation should be judged as unsatisfactory.
The last two votes of confidence failed to identify high-level officials where performing
below the standard set by their peers. In other words, using below 50 per cent of the
vote as a measure was too general. It did not identify high-level officials who needed
to improve their performance.

Suggested citation: Carlyle A. Thayer, Vietnam Reinstates Vote of Confidence for

Leaders, Thayer Consultancy Background Brief, June 13, 2017. All background briefs
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