20,000 questions for Vietnam prime minister's first online "chat"

dpa German Press Agency Published: Wednesday February 7, 2007

Hanoi- Vietnamese internet users have submitted more than
20,000 questions for Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung's
upcoming first online chat with citizens, an official said Wednesday.
Dung is expected to answer 35 to 40 questions during the dialogue
Friday, seen as an unprecedented move for the Communist Party-chosen
prime minister to reach out to the citizenry.

However, the chat will not be strictly live. Most of the questions
will be pre-selected, though web-users can submit questions online in
real time to a team of advisers who will read them and perhaps bring
them to the prime minister's attention, said a government official.

"The prime minister, with his strong character, will take time to
answer the questions frankly and directly. He will not shy away from
any of them," the official said

The questions range from issues of education and health care to
hot-button subjects such as corruption and land use.

Readers on the government website have been voting on the best
question, with 113 of the popular questions already posted.

"Mr Prime Minister, why is the process to punish corruption cases
very slow?" reads one popular question. "That makes people doubt
about the government's determination and capability to fight against
corruption. Do you, Prime Minister, have any new method?"

Another question reads: "The development of our country in the
past years has been encouraging, however we are depending so much on
foreign loans. Mr Prime Minister, will our next generation, our
children and grandchildren, be able to pay off all the debts?"

Vietnam established a policy of online chats for government
officials shortly after last year's 10th Communist Party Congress,
which grappled with a series of corruption scandals that some party
leaders could undermine confidence in the country's one-party rule.

Minister of Education Nguyen Thien Nhan and former deputy premier
Vu Khoan have recently chatted online as part of the new initiative.

In the past year, Vietnam's government suffered embarrassment
after a major embezzlement case came to light in the transport
ministry and as protests over alleged land-grabs by local officials
are becoming more common.

While few Vietnamese openly call for multiparty democracy - and
most who do face arrest or imprisonment - the country's leaders have
recently felt under more pressure than before to reach out to the
populace.

© 2006 - dpa German Press Agency