The secretive Lao People’s Revolutionary Party opened its five-yearly congress yesterday, a rare and significant event which decides who runs the country and sets its economic priorities.
The communists have ruled the impoverished Southeast Asian nation since the 1975 end of the Vietnam War, which spilled into Laos and saw the country blanketed by bombs in a secret war led by the CIA.
State media said 684 delegates — representing more than 200,000 party members — would attend the five-day meeting in Vientiane.
The congress is to select the members of the influential Laos Politburo and Central Committee, the key decisionmaking bodies governing the landlocked but resource-rich country.
It comes as Laos assumes the year-long chairmanship of the ASEAN regional bloc that would see a cascade of diplomatic meetings and open the cloistered, tightly-controlled nation to greater scrutiny.
Launching the congress, Laotian Prime Minister Thongsing Thammavong lauded the nation’s decade-long boom which has seen an average annual growth rate of 7.4 percent.
Highlighting a vision for lifting the country out of poverty, he told delegates that the “difference between city and countryside will narrow... human resources will develop, citizen’s rights will be protected, the environment will be preserved.”
Laos faces a plethora of major environmental challenges, many the result of Chinese-built megadams, mining operations and massive deforestation.
The nation has one of the fastest growing and youngest populations in the world with about 70 percent of its 6.7 million people under 30.
However, its leaders almost all exclusively hail from the revolutionary era and are in their seventies overseeing a tightly-controlled nation with a poor human rights record.
The last party congress, held in 2011, opted for stability with Central Committee General Secretary Choummaly Sayasone retaining his position.
However, Choummaly is widely expected to retire and observers expect the congress to play host to political maneuvers by his allies and opponents.
Experts on the nation told reporters that Laotian Vice President Bounnhang Vorachith is the most likely successor to Choummaly.
That could leave Thongsing — often seen as a rival to Choummaly — on the sidelines.
One Western official, requesting anonymity, said that the old guard were losing some of their grip, particularly within the Central Committee which sits under the Politburo.
“There’s a transition going on between the last revolutionary veterans and a younger generation of cadres, many of whom went to universities in Vietnam or the Soviet Union and therefore have a somewhat more international mindset,” the official said.
Western media have not been granted permission to observe the congress, though some journalists from China and Vietnam usually attend.
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