Scarce room at the top of Vietnamese politics for women

By Zachary Abuza2024.10.27

Communist systems are purported to be egalitarian and gender neutral. But in Vietnam, as with China, despite the lofty rhetoric, the country falls short in terms of its own stated goals and ideals.

A handful of women have excelled in the Vietnamese corporate world, such as tycoon Nguyen Thi Phuong Thao. And Truong My Lan has set the bar for spectacular corporate scandals, receiving the death penalty and a life sentence in two cases involving fraud and money laundering at Van Thinh Phat and Saigon Commercial Bank.

Vietnam, which celebrates women’s day on Oct. 20, is often touted for having some of the highest rates of female political participation in Southeast Asia. Based only on the metric of parliamentarians, with just under 30%, Vietnam does stand above its ASEAN peers, with the exception of the Philippines.

But in other aspects of politics, Vietnam is falling far short of its stated goals.

Gender equality was always tied to the ideals of the socialist revolution. One of the first laws passed by the Democratic Republic of Vietnam was the Marriage and Family Law of 1959 that gave women equality under the law.

Article 26 of the Constitution, amended in 2013, assures gender equality, and puts an onus on the state for advancing women’s rights, and prohibits sexual discrimination.

In their 2024 country report, Freedom House wrote that “Vietnam has enacted policies and strategies aimed at boosting women’s political participation, but in practice the interests of women are poorly represented in government.”

Vietnam set a high bar for itself, with the goal of having 60% of all state agencies and local governments having key female leaders by 2025, and 75% by 2030. Vietnam seems on track to have 35% female representation in the National Assembly by 2030.

Plucky parliamentarians

Vietnamese women have fared well in the plucky National Assembly. Though controlled by the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV), it is not a rubber stamp, and has demonstrated a surprising degree of independence.

Women’s participation in the National Assembly fell between 2007-2016, before recovering. But it is still below their target. Women currently comprise 27% of National Assembly delegates.

But beyond the National Assembly there is a dearth of female representation at both the senior level of leadership and the key pathways to senior leadership that would result in greater female representation down the line at the 15th and 16th Party congresses, expected in 2031 and 2036, respectively.

There is currently only one woman on the elite 15-member Politburo: Bui Thi Minh Hoai, who was elected mid-term at the 9th Plenum in May.

Truong Thi Mai, the only woman elected to the 18 member Politburo at the 13th Congress in January 2021, was forced to resign in May as part of the ongoing Blazing Furnace anti-corruption scandal. Mai headed the CPV’s Secretariat, making her the highest-ranking female politician in the country’s history.

With Mai’s resignation, there are currently no women on the 12-member CPV Secretariat, which is in charge of the party’s day-to-day affairs.

The 12th Politburo was the acme of female representation, with three women among 19 members, or 16%.

Tellingly, all three women served in National Assembly leadership positions: chair Nguyen Thi Kim Ngan, deputy chair Tong Thi Phuong, and Mai, then a member of the National Assembly’s Standing Committee.

Phuong and Ngan likewise served on the 11th Politburo, concurrently serving as deputy chairs of the National Assembly.

So even in the Politburo, often the pathway to power for women comes through the National Assembly.

Pathways to power

What about other pathways to power?

For starters, only one-third of the Communist Party’s 5.3 million members are women.

In the current term, nine of the 63 provinces or provincial-level cities were headed by a woman: An Giang, Bac Ninh, Hai Nam, Lai Chau, Lang Son, Ninh Binh, Quang Ngai, Thai Nguyen and Vinh Phuc.

In mid-2024, the newly minted Politburo member Bui Thi Minh Hoai was appointed chair of the Hanoi Party Committee, following the forced resignation of the incumbent, Dinh Tien Dung, on corruption charges.

That brings the number of provincial committee chairs to 16% of the total. This is important, because roughly one-third of the Central Committee is composed of provincial representatives.

At the time of writing, the Central Committee had only 183 members and alternate members. Only 16, or 9%, are women. This is down from the 13th Congress in January 2021, when women comprised 9.5 percent of the Central Committee.

At present, only two provincial governments, Bac Ninh and Binh Phuoc, are headed by women, a mere 3%.

Within the State Council, none of the five deputy prime ministers are women, and only three of 22 minister-level officials are women. These include Minister of Internal Affairs Pham Thi Thanh Tra, Minister of Health Dao Hong Lan, and the governor of the State Bank of Vietnam, Nguyen Thi Hong.

Correcting imbalances

The minister of health has been under a cloud ever since the Viet-A covid-19 test kit scandal, which rocked her ministry, and landed her predecessor in jail. Netizens have long mocked the ministry as a font of corruption.

The State Bank governor, likewise, has been under intense scrutiny following the government’s failure to adequately regulate Saigon Commercial Bank, caught up in the Truong My Lan and Van Thinh Phat scandal, which led to a $24 billion government bailout of the bank.

One area where women are continuing to excel is within the country’s elite diplomatic corps.

At a recent ceremony, five of 16 newly appointed ambassadors were women. While that is important for Vietnam on the world stage, it does little in the world of Vietnamese politics.

Gender equality has been a concern since the onset of the socialist revolution; Ho Chi Minh himself made it a priority of the revolution. But in recent years, the CPV has fallen short of its stated goals.

There is a chance to rectify that at the 14th national Party Congress, expected to be held in January 2026. Planning, including the composition of the 14th Central Committee, is already underway.

While the elite Central Committee and Politburo are out of balance in a number of ways – most notably regional dynamics – the party has to move beyond tokenism in representation of women within its highest decision-making bodies.

Zachary Abuza is a professor at the National War College in Washington and an adjunct at Georgetown University. The views expressed here are his own and do not reflect the position of the U.S. Department of Defense, the National War College, Georgetown University or Radio Free Asia.