The Party’s Will and the Myth of Consensus in Việt Nam Politics

The slogan “Ý Đảng, Lòng Dân (the Party’s will aligns with the people’s aspirations)” is meaningless unless tested through data, dialogue, and accountability. Equating public aspiration with social silence or selective feedback is a dangerous oversimplification that obscures long-standing grievances regarding land, the environment, and governance.

The real strength of the Communist Party of Việt Nam lies not in self-affirming consensus, but in its capacity to listen, accept disagreement, and transparently correct mistakes.

In a recent statement, Trịnh Văn Quyết—the head of the Central Commission for Propaganda and Mass Mobilization—declared that this alignment is “the greatest source of strength” for overcoming challenges and achieving sustainable development, while tasking the propaganda apparatus with “maintaining ideological stability” and “building broad social consensus.” [1]

Similarly, in Oct. 2024, General Secretary Tô Lâm stated that “the Party’s will is intertwined with the people’s aspirations in the shared desire to build a prosperous and happy country.” [2]

While appealing, this argument is only valid when political lines genuinely reflect social needs. What the public needs to know is whether the Party’s will truly aligns with the people’s aspirations in practice—to what extent, where, and through which mechanisms.

Fundamentally, this notion is deeply flawed. It treats “the people’s aspirations” as a single, undifferentiated whole, ignoring divergent interests and priorities. Furthermore, it equates “consensus” with silence. Most dangerously, it replaces necessary measurement, dialogue, and accountability with slogans.

Can “People’s Aspirations” Be Measured?

In a society of over 100 million people, “the people’s aspirations” are diverse and often divergent: workers prioritize jobs and social security, farmers focus on land rights, urban residents worry about the environment and healthcare, while businesses seek administrative reform. To compress these varied demands into a single claim of "alignment" is an extreme oversimplification—a moral slogan rather than a serious effort to understand public sentiment.

When livelihood pressures regarding corruption, poverty, and employment weigh heavily on the population, one must ask: Is the state truly listening, or merely projecting its own wishes?

The tools currently used to measure satisfaction appear to be nonexistent or purely rhetorical. For instance, an article on Chính sách và Cuộc sống (Vietnam News Agency) claimed that “people in the former imperial capital express deep trust and great expectations toward the 14th Party Congress.” [3]

This piece offered no concrete figures, survey data, or methodology to define what “deep trust” entails. Similarly, the Hồ Chí Minh City Party Committee website asserted that “practice over the past 95 years has proven that ‘the Party’s will and the people’s aspirations’ are intertwined and unified.” [4]

These examples demonstrate that the state is attempting to infer aspirations from political will, rather than observing them through necessary data, policy feedback, and complaint mechanisms.

The Fallacy of Feedback Volume

If “alignment with the people’s aspirations” implies agreement, there must be credible mechanisms to verify it. Currently, the state measures “consensus” through indirect indicators like the volume of policy feedback. For instance, Quyết cited “nearly 14 million comments” on draft documents in a single month as evidence of public “trust.” [5]

While this sounds impressive, a high number of comments often reflects anxiety rather than approval. This was evident in November 2023, when authorities received over 12 million comments on the draft amended Land Law. [6] These submissions focused heavily on sensitive topics like compensation, resettlement, and land allocation—signaling widespread discontent rather than “[alignment] with the people’s aspirations.”

The reality on the ground contradicts the narrative of unity. As of April 2024, Hồ Chí Minh City alone had recorded 85,300 petitions and complaints related to land issues, [7] with citizens frequently accusing officials of failing to comply with the law. If the Party truly aligned its will with the people, land would not continue to be such a volatile source of grievance.

The root cause is the system of “entire-people ownership” and flawed compensation mechanisms. Losing land often means losing one's livelihood, yet the Government Inspectorate acknowledges that “many localities compensate citizens at very low prices, while the prices at which enterprises sell land are very high.” [9]

The Party Should Listen

The goal is not to continuously assert that “the Party’s will aligns with the people’s aspirations,” but to make that alignment a reality. This requires verifiable mechanisms rather than rhetoric: meaningful consultation, effective complaint channels, and clear accountability.

Priority must be given to transparency in areas prone to public suspicion, specifically land (pricing, planning, compensation), environmental monitoring, and social welfare services. When citizens possess accurate information, the state no longer needs to rely on slogans to persuade them; let them speak openly about what they think of the state, the Party, and policy.

Furthermore, genuine dialogue mechanisms must be established to allow people—especially marginalized groups—to present their views and proposals. These exchanges cannot be empty gestures; the Party must produce records of these consultations, complete with clear deadlines and assigned responsibilities for response.

The state must accept disagreement as a normal condition. “The people’s aspirations” do not always move in unison with the Party’s views. Suppressing dissent only exposes weaknesses in governance. Instead, the Party should treat differences as a driving force for policy improvement and modern development.

As an aspirational standard, the phrase “the Party’s will aligns with the people’s aspirations” has value. But treated as a proven conclusion, it serves only to obscure warning signs and deeply entrenched problems. True political strength is not derived from proclaiming consensus but from the capacity to absorb feedback, listen, and adjust to social discontent. The Party must choose responsiveness over the impulse to shut down debate and indulge in self-congratulation.

Hải Hà wrote this article in Vietnamese and published it in Luật Khoa Magazine on Jan. 22, 2026. Đàm Vĩnh Hằng translated it into English for The Vietnamese Magazine.