Local Characteristics and Activities of Commune People's Council

Clans and villages are referenced into a "standard system" for representatives in the People's Council to speak up, care for and protect the interests of clans and villages as a reflection of the voice of voters where they live.

“The fact that clans have an influence on the activities of the People's Council is true. For example, when electing People's Council representatives, large clans have an advantage in terms of votes, or in cases where the People's Council representatives are members of the clan, they sometimes consider the interests of the clan in their activities.”

Source of in-depth interview by the author: male, 50 years old, Chairman of District People's Council, Hanoi.

"For many years now, there has been a commune where village A has always had to have the largest number of People's Council delegates, the Chairman must be from village A and the Secretary must be from village B"..."there are no regulations to ensure the success of the election of People's Council delegates, and it has been like this for a long time..."

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Source of in-depth interview by the author: male, 45 years old, Deputy of Socio-Economic Committee of District People's Council, Hanoi.

4.1.3.3. Local characteristics and activities of the Commune People's Council

The survey area of the thesis is divided into 3 areas: suburban area (Dong Anh district), plain area (Phu Xuyen district), mountainous area (My Duc district). With such geographical conditions, the economic characteristics of the 3 districts are also different:

Dong Anh district, a suburban area, is home to many industrial parks and is also a large vegetable granary supplying Hanoi's inner city. The average income per capita in the district in 2020 is estimated at 60 million VND/person/year; the entire district has no more poor households [126, p.3].

Phu Xuyen district has strengths in developing agriculture and small-scale industry with 43 recognized traditional craft villages. The average income per capita in 2020 in the district is estimated at 50 million VND/person/year. The poverty rate in the district has decreased to 0.95% [31, p.3].

My Duc district prioritizes the development of commercial service tourism as a spearhead economy with the famous spiritual tourism - scenic area of Huong Pagoda. The average income per capita in the district in 2020 is estimated at 45.3 million VND/person/year. The poverty rate in the district is 2.8% [30, p.2].

Thus, the economic structure and per capita income of the three surveyed districts are different. The differences in economic conditions have led to differences between village communities, the political consciousness of voters and indirectly affected the activities of the People's Council of the commune.

Regarding the rate of people going to vote and participating in voter meetings of the People's Council of the commune: My Duc district is a mountainous district, with many ethnic minorities living in mountainous communes, the level of education is still limited, the economic conditions are not high and the transportation is not convenient, so the rate of people going to vote and participating in voter meetings is lower than the remaining units. Dong Anh district, although having much higher economic conditions, is a suburban district close to the center of Hanoi, the level of education is high, however, due to the characteristics of a suburban district, people have the opportunity to work in localities outside the district, or work in industrial parks, export processing zones, so they are not often present in the locality at the time of the election and have little time to participate in the activities of the local government in general and the activities of the People's Council in particular. Meanwhile, Phu Xuyen district has more stable economic conditions and employment characteristics, so the rate of people going to vote is the highest compared to the other two localities.

Regarding the rate of people participating in the citizen reception activities of the People's Council of the commune: compared to the other two districts, Dong Anh is a district with rapid urbanization, land prices increasing rapidly along with land clearance, land recovery, ... these things directly affect the people, leading to many people having complaints and petitions related to land disputes, compensation for land clearance, etc. Therefore, the survey results show that Dong Anh district is the locality with the highest rate of people attending the citizen reception sessions of the People's Council delegates, which is completely appropriate. The data on the results of the activities of the People's Council of the three districts also show that Dong Anh district has the highest number of voters' petitions sent to the People's Council delegates compared to the other two districts.

Thus, the economic, labor and employment characteristics of the locality have a direct impact on the level of participation (interest) of the people in the activities of the People's Council of the commune. My Duc district is far from the center, the economy is mainly concentrated in a few communes with conditions to develop tourism and services, while in other communes, the people's lives are basically

still faces many difficulties, so the level of people's interest in the activities of the People's Council is also lower than in Phu Xuyen and Dong Anh (the rate of people participating in elections and participating in voter contact and citizen reception are both lower than the other two districts). Dong Anh district is a vibrantly developing locality with a high economic growth rate, people have more conditions to participate in local government activities, however, most of the people work far away or work in industrial zones, so they do not spend much time on government activities, but it is the locality with the highest rate of people participating in citizen reception sessions of the People's Council delegates. The rate of people participating in and interested in the activities of the People's Council is the most stable in Phu Xuyen district, also because this is a locality with a high level of economic development, people mainly work locally with traditional crafts for stable income.

Local economic conditions not only affect the political consciousness of each citizen but also affect the activities of the People's Council of the commune . "Due to the characteristics of a mountainous ethnic commune, the qualifications of the representatives are uneven, some representatives are not enthusiastic and responsible" [99].

“Campaigning for election as a People’s Council delegate is also difficult, no one wants to do it because the economy is still difficult, people say it takes time, the responsibility is high, and the allowance is low... Only I am a full-timer, so I will do it. For now, we just need to ensure that the activities are in accordance with the Law, and the quality must be gradually improved... In addition to salary, commune People’s Council delegates receive an additional 0.3% of the base salary, about more than 400,000 VND per month.”

Source of author's in-depth interview: male, 58 years old, Vice Chairman of People's Council of commune, Hanoi.

“Electing the Village Chief is stressful, let alone the election of People's Council delegates. I know some people who campaigned very hard before the People's Council election...after all, being a People's Council delegate also has a certain voice in the commune.”

Source of author's in-depth interview: male, 42 years old, Chairman of the Vietnam Fatherland Front Committee of Hanoi district.

Thus, it can be seen that in communes with good economic conditions, the election as well as the activities of the People's Council are relatively favorable, there is no need to campaign for each person to vote, participate in meeting voters and receiving citizens.

From the survey results, it can be concluded that: The socio-economic conditions of each locality have a certain impact on the activities of the People's Council of the commune. In localities with developed economy and stable society, people are more interested in the activities of the People's Council of the commune. The community of clans and villages affects the activities of the People's Council of the commune in many ways, both positively and potentially negatively. Therefore, in the process of proposing solutions to improve the quality of activities of the People's Council of the commune, it is necessary to identify the characteristics of each locality to propose solutions suitable for the People's Council in each specific area. In particular, economic development, social stability, raising political awareness and ensuring the material and spiritual life of the people, creating favorable conditions for the activities of local governments in general, and of the People's Council of the commune in particular, are also tasks of the People's Council of the commune through deciding on important local issues and organizing the supervision of the implementation of the People's Council's resolutions and the implementation of laws by agencies and units.

4.2. SOLUTIONS TO ENSURE THE OPERATION OF THE COMMUNE PEOPLE'S COUNCIL MEETS ITS FUNCTIONS AND TASKS

4.2.1. Continue to improve the operating mechanism of the political system.

The People's Council of the commune is an agency in the political system of the commune, so to ensure the People's Council operates with quality and efficiency, meeting its functions and tasks, the first important thing is to continue to perfect the operating mechanism of the political system of the commune.

In our country's political system, the role and function of the Party is to provide political leadership, the State is to manage all social activities, the Fatherland Front and socio-political organizations are to gather union members and members to build a great national unity bloc, create social consensus, and consolidate the political foundation of the Party and State. The operating mechanism of our country's political system is currently "The Party leads, the State manages, and the people are the masters". At the grassroots level, local authorities include People's Councils and People's Committees. In order for the political system to operate effectively, the Resolution of the 10th National Congress of the Party has identified one of the solutions to build a political system.

The current political system in our country is to innovate the organization and operation methods of the political system to strengthen the leadership role of the Party, the management effectiveness of the State, and promote the people's mastery. It is the process of making the political system operate more dynamically and effectively, in line with the comprehensive and synchronous renovation of the country.

In that operation, in order for the People's Council of the commune to perform its role well, the Party Committee must strengthen its leadership and direction role in the activities of the People's Council of the commune. In fact, the survey shows that in the activities of the People's Council of the commune, some contents that the Party Committee is interested in and directs are giving opinions on mechanisms and policies before submitting them to the meeting and the work of inspecting and supervising the activities of the People's Council, these are also two contents that the People's Council of the commune is implementing well. The resolutions on mechanisms and policies issued by the People's Council of the commune ensure compliance with the law, feasibility and effective application in the locality; the organizational structure and operation of the People's Council of the commune also ensure compliance with the provisions of the Law. However, the current problem is that the work of the People's Council of the commune in many places has not received due attention from the Party Committee while the People's Council delegates are an important factor determining the quality of the activities of the People's Council of the commune. This may stem from the fact that the Party Committee and local authorities have not really paid due attention to the activities of the People's Council, have not fully recognized the role and importance of the People's Council, especially the selection and arrangement of cadres to take on leadership positions of the People's Council. The work of planning, training and fostering delegates, especially delegates holding key positions of the People's Council, must be of interest to the Party Committee and implemented in the overall process of local cadre work. Thereby, it is possible to search for, build and foster a team of cadres and delegates with capacity, responsibility for the activities of the People's Council. In particular, for the upcoming 2021-2026 term, ensuring the leadership of the Party throughout the election process is a must in order to select the most representative and worthy people, who meet the standards prescribed by law, are not corrupt and resolutely fight against corruption; have the capacity and conditions to perform the tasks of National Assembly deputies and People's Council deputies [124].

At the same time, ensure structure and quality, not reduce quality because of structure. That is the basis, the legal basis for forming state agencies in

new term, ensuring continuity and consistency with the results of party congresses at all levels and the National Party Congress.

Therefore, perfecting the communal political system to ensure the effective and efficient operation of the communal People's Council must closely follow the Party's viewpoints affirmed in the Resolutions of the 4th Central Committee Conference, 11th tenure (2012) to the 7th Central Committee Conference, 11th tenure (2013) "On innovation and improving the quality of the grassroots political system of communes, wards and towns" ; that is, implementing the model of Party Committee Secretary concurrently being the Chairman of the Commune People's Council. This model was later pointed out by the 12th National Party Congress as "basically implementing the model of Party Committee Secretary concurrently being the Chairman of the People's Council at all levels" and continued to be affirmed in Resolution No. 18-NQ/TW, dated October 25, 2017, of the 6th Central Committee Conference, 12th tenure, "Some issues on continuing to innovate and reorganize the apparatus of the political system to be streamlined and operate effectively and efficiently". The "unification" of the position of Party Committee Secretary and Chairman of the People's Council at the same level is one of the important solutions to continue to innovate the Party's governing method in the new situation, enhancing the effectiveness and efficiency of the Party Committee's leadership over the People's Council.

In communes, the implementation of "unification" of the position of Party Secretary and Chairman of the People's Council has many advantages. The leadership methods of the Party Secretary and the People's Council Chairman have many similarities and can complement each other. The People's Council is a local state power agency, and the People's Council meetings take place after the regular meetings of the Party Committee, so it can concretize the Party Committee's policies and guidelines into the People's Council's resolutions for the authorities to then organize implementation. The Party Secretary being the Chairman of the People's Council will contribute to innovating the method and enhancing the Party Committee's direct and comprehensive leadership role over the People's Council; at the same time, improving the position, quality and effectiveness of the People's Council in performing its tasks and powers according to the law. The fact that the Party Committee Secretary is also the Chairman of the People's Council of the commune will also create conditions to strengthen the working coordination relationship between the People's Council and other agencies in the political system, helping the political tasks in the commune to be carried out more synchronously, promptly and effectively. To implement this model, it is necessary to pay attention to a number of contents such as: focusing on the mobilization and rotation of cadres to implement the policy that the Party Committee Secretary is not a local person, associated with the work of preparing personnel for the Party Congress of the commune; reviewing and amending a number of laws, regulations,

... related regulations to clearly stipulate the duties and powers of the Party Committee Secretary who is also the Chairman of the People's Council of the commune...

Perfecting the operating mechanism of the communal political system also means strengthening the close, smooth and effective coordination between the People's Council, the People's Committee and the Fatherland Front Committee of the commune on the basis of clearly understanding the role, position, functions and tasks of each agency; together performing well the political tasks, developing the socio-economy, maintaining national defense and security, stabilizing social order. In particular, paying special attention to the relationship between the People's Council and the People's Committee of the commune. The relationship between the People's Council and the People's Committee is likened to "two wings of a bird", which is enough to show the interdependence between the two agencies of the People's Council and the People's Committee of the commune. The People's Council issues Resolutions, the People's Committee implements the Resolutions; the People's Council supervises, the People's Committee is supervised; the People's Council receives opinions and recommendations from voters, complaints and denunciations from citizens to forward to the People's Committee for response and resolution. According to the survey results of the Thesis, the Commune People's Committee is currently doing a good job of coordinating the preparation of the contents of the Commune People's Council meetings, preparing reports, projects, submissions, and draft resolutions to be submitted to the Commune People's Council meetings. However, the implementation of the People's Council's supervision conclusions, questions, and explanations is still limited. This leads to the low quality and effectiveness of the Commune People's Council's supervision activities - while the goal of supervision is to ensure that the People's Council is truly a representative body of the people, ensuring that state power belongs to the people.

Therefore, in order to improve the quality and effectiveness of the activities of the People's Council of the commune, thereby affirming the position and role of the People's Council of the commune in the current political system of the commune, it is necessary to continue to review, supplement and perfect the provisions of the current legal system on the responsibilities of the People's Committee in coordinating and implementing the activities of the People's Council. Stipulate some specific sanctions for the People's Committee and related agencies when they do not seriously implement the conclusions after supervision, questioning and explanation of the People's Council, the Standing Committee and the People's Council Committees; or when they do not completely resolve the recommendations of voters, complaints and denunciations of citizens transferred by the People's Council.

4.2.2. Ensure that the social structure of the People's Council meets its functions and tasks as prescribed by Law.

Any organization can only function well when its organizational structure and internal structure are stable and suitable for its functions and tasks. Analyzing the impact of the social structure of the People's Council on the activities of the People's Council shows that the capacity of the People's Council is

The capacity and qualifications of the People's Council delegates have not yet met the requirements and tasks, leading to some limitations in the activities of the People's Council such as thematic supervision, questioning, receiving citizens, etc. (Section 4.1.2 - Chapter 4). The summary report on the activities of the People's Council of the 2016-2021 term of the 9 surveyed communes also shared this opinion. Therefore, ensuring the social structure of the People's Council of the commune meets the functions and tasks prescribed by the Law is an important solution contributing to improving the quality and effectiveness of the activities of the People's Council of the commune.

Regarding organizational structure: Implementing the Law on Organization of Local Government in 2015, the organizational structure of the People's Council of the commune in Hanoi at present as well as the People's Council of the commune level in the whole country includes: 01 part-time Chairman, 01 full-time Vice Chairman (mandatory) and part-time People's Council delegates. The People's Council has 2 Socio-Economic and Legal Committees, each committee consists of 01 Head and 01 Vice Head. With the establishment of 2 more Committees, the quality of activities of the People's Council of the commune has been gradually improved. However, the failure to establish the People's Council Delegation Groups of the commune has somewhat caused difficulties for the activities of delegates in groups, especially in organizing meetings with voters by village and residential area. To overcome this situation, the People's Councils of some communes have flexibly organized for the People's Council delegates to work in groups corresponding to the constituency (village administrative unit) and have had positive effects. Therefore, it is advisable to continue to organize the model of People's Council Delegation Groups of the commune as for the People's Council Delegation Groups of the provincial and district levels.

Regarding the social structure of the People's Council of the commune: as an elected body, the People's Council delegates must ensure the representation of each component and class in society, so the problem of balancing the structure and quality of the People's Council delegates is always raised. In the 2016-2021 term, through statistics, it is shown that the quality of the People's Council delegates has been gradually improved. Nearly 50% of the People's Council delegates have university degrees; many delegates have working experience, have been trained in intermediate and advanced political theory; and are given opportunities to study and improve their qualifications and skills as elected representatives. However, the professional qualifications, working capacity and skills of some delegates have not yet met the requirements. In particular, although the proportion of delegates with degrees (professional and political theory) has been raised, the capacity for social criticism and the level of understanding of the law of the delegates are not proportional to that. Assessment

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