Nguyễn Xuân Anh, Secretary of the Đà Nẵng Party Committee, speaks to the newspaper Tuổi trẻ (Youth) about the criteria for selecting the city’s leaders

Would you please explain Đà Nẵng’s criteria for selecting the city’s future leaders?

The first and most important criterion is that the candidates must be under 35 years old, for a very simple reason: they will be under  probation for three to five years. If they excel during that period, they will be promoted. By that time they are already 40 years old.

In my opinion, the age of 40 is the best time in a person’s life in terms of spiritual and physical conditions. Normally, people start aging at the age of 50. That’s why, in my opinion, we should select talented people who are under 35 years old to train them to become future leaders.

Many high-ranking city officials will retire in the coming years and this is the right time for us to train young people for the city’s future leadership.

Many people don’t have confidence in the capabilities of young leaders, particularly those who are the off-spring of senior officials. How do you respond?

Many people still think that young people cannot perform their assigned duties as well as older people. I don’t agree. We should provide them with opportunities to gain experience and training by sending them to work at grass roots level. I have to say that many young people have been well trained and educated abroad.

Though, I am the City’s Party Secretary, I don’t think that I’m better than many of them. In the position of the city’s Party Secretary, I have to make the best use of the intellectual knowledge and capacity of young people and provide them with opportunities to contribute to the city and the country. Of course, whether they are successful depends on them. I’m confident that they will do a good job given the opportunity.

Could you elaborate on the city’s plan to select young people and train them to become future leaders?

In the second quarter of 2017, Đà Nẵng will start personnel planning. Of course, we’ll follow the required procedures and make them public. For example, the personnel planning for positions in the City Party Committee will be made public among the City Party Committee members. Of course, all candidates’ curriculum vitae will be made public in the Party cell that they belong to as well as their place of work.

What if candidates don’t perform as expected during their probation period?

If the candidate cannot meet the requirements, he/she will be out and new candidates will be in.

As we all know, there are often three candidates for one position. So there must be competition among the three candidates. The best one will then be chosen.

Do you think that this time the selection process will take into account candidates’ curriculum vitae?

We have been discussing this issue. Of course, the selection has to go through very careful consideration. Each member of the City Party’s Committee can nominate two candidates. And then all the candidates are subjected to a screening process through secret voting. If two candidates get the same number of votes, curriculum vitae will then become an important consideration.

Will people who are natives of Quảng Ngãi Province be given priority during the process of selection?

No special treatment for natives of Quảng Ngãi. The first criterion is that the candidate must live and work in Đà Nẵng City. There is no differentiation in terms of birth place and accent of the candidate.

Lê Quảng Nam, director of the city’s Department of Natural Resources and Environment, comes from Huế Imperial City while Đào Tấn Bằng, the Office Chief of the City Party’s Committee, comes from Bình Định Province. In other words, good performance is the key criterion. — VNS