Fully Authoritarian
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Population
HRF classifies Vietnam as ruled by a fully authoritarian regime.
The Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV) has been the sole ruling party since 1976 and maintains absolute control over all branches of government except the parliament. In August 2024, following the death of longtime CPV General Secretary Nguyễn Phu Trọng that July, then–Vietnamese President Tô Lâm became the ruling party’s general secretary. The new General Secretary also remained in the presidency until October 2024, when CPV General Luong Cuong was appointed to the position. During Lâm’s leadership as general secretary, there have been severe crackdowns, extensive centralization of authority, and transnational repression of dissent. He has intensified pressure on journalists, civil society actors, and critics while consolidating power through reforms in the judiciary, legislature, and executive. Elections and state institutions largely operate as instruments of party control rather than as mechanisms for accountability or public participation.
National elections are a sham. The Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV) is the sole existing political party and has ruled uninterrupted since the founding of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam in 1976. There is no mainstream opposition. The few “independent” candidates – a term that refers to CPV members who are self-nominating, non-CPV members nominated by the party, and self-nominating non-CPV members – that contest elections are subject to prior vetting by the regime and its affiliated organizations. The regime exerts tight control over electoral oversight.
Independent media, civil society leaders, organizations, and regular people face overt and systematic retaliation if they openly criticize the regime. The vast majority of formally registered media outlets are controlled by the regime. Civil society organizations may only work in non-politically sensitive areas and are prone to regime intimidation. Dissidents risk surveillance, harassment, arbitrary arrest and detention, and physical attacks. The regime has been implicated in several transnational attacks against exiled Vietnamese dissidents.
Institutions largely fail to serve as independent checks on the regime. Vietnamese courts operate within the framework of a people’s court system mandated to serve the regime and its interests, depriving it of the power to review regime policies. The regime exercises absolute control over judicial appointments, removals, and disciplinary action. Courts regularly impose harsh sentences on dissidents without adhering to fair trial standards. The legislative branch is firmly captured, with the National Assembly lacking independence due to the Communist Party’s control over candidate nominations and electoral processes, effectively eliminating genuine political competition. Executive authority is similarly subordinated to party rule, a dynamic reinforced by recent administrative reforms that consolidate power vertically and eliminate intermediate levels of government, further reducing opportunities for independent oversight.
National elections are a sham. The CPV monopolizes the political system by excluding real opposition, intimidating independent candidates, and controlling election oversight through a tightly managed party apparatus.
The regime systematically and unfairly bars real, mainstream opposition parties from competing in elections. Only the parliament is directly elected. Its members, known as delegates, elect the president, vice president, and prime minister. Parliamentary polls are held every five years. Given that Vietnam is a one-party state, the CPV is the only political party to contest them. The constitution, adopted in 2013, designates the CPV as the “vanguard of the […] Vietnamese nation.” This clause codifies the CPV’s monopoly on power. Local election laws technically allow any person aged 21 or older to contest elections. However, in practice, all candidates who have won every election since the founding of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam in 1976 have been vetted by the regime, indicating an absence of electoral competition.
To lend the elections a semblance of democratic legitimacy, the regime occasionally allows independent candidates – those who may mount a genuine opposition against it – to run. However, these candidates are vulnerable to intimidation tactics by the regime, preventing them from having a realistic chance to win. This was the case in 2021, for example, when Lương Thế Huy, an LGBTQ+ activist, ran for the National Assembly as a representative of Hanoi, the capital city. On the campaign trail, Huy was targeted with smear campaigns by the regime and its proxies that painted him as a foreign-sponsored radical, and many regime-affiliated online media outlets removed their publications referencing him. He lost the polls despite being one of the most prominent candidates from his city.
The CPV systematically undermines independent electoral oversight. The National Election Council, the election management body, is appointed by the National Assembly. In the past, council members have included the chair of the National Assembly, the vice president, the deputy prime minister, and the chair of the Fatherland Front, an umbrella group comprising the CPV and affiliated organizations. The lack of checks and balances in this appointment process ensures the council is packed with loyalists.
Independent media, civil society leaders, organizations, and regular people face overt and systematic retaliation if they openly criticize the regime. The CPV tightly controls media and civil society, arbitrarily detains critics, violently suppresses protests, and targets dissidents outside of the country.
The regime heavily manipulates media coverage in its favor. Reporters Without Borders ranks Vietnam among the world’s worst countries for press freedom. Most mainstream media are regime-affiliated, meaning that regime entities control their operational structures, funding, and reporting. A small minority is partly funded by the regime or entirely private. Regardless of their ownership and funding, all outlets are required to follow the party line in their reporting. Private or semi-private outlets may not produce their own news and must only republish stories run by their regime-affiliated counterparts. Most journalists occupying leadership positions in the media sector are members of the CPV, ensuring that the outlets they manage remain in strict compliance with the regime’s media rules. In January 2025, the state completed its consolidation of VTC Digital Television – a major state‑run broadcaster operating 13 television channels – into the national broadcaster Voice of Vietnam (VOV) TV. This restructuring effectively eliminated intra‑state media diversity by collapsing multiple channels into a single national broadcaster. In November 2024, the government issued Decree 126, legally expanding government control over nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and civil society groups. This law gives authorities increased powers, potentially allowing them to suspend or dissolve independent associations, tighten registration requirements, and monitor funding and activities. As of December 2025, there has yet to be reported evidence of it being used in such a manner.
The regime has seriously intimidated the media, civil society leaders, organizations, and regular people and unfairly obstructed their work. Vietnam has one of the highest numbers of political prisoners in Southeast Asia, second only to junta-led Burma. Among the individuals the regime has targeted for their criticism is pop star and political activist Mai Khôi, who often advocates for greater political participation for women and other political issues through her songs. At the 2018 Oslo Freedom Forum, Khôi spoke about her experience with regime repression, including having her concerts raided by police, being barred from running for parliament, being banned from singing, and being evicted from her house. While there are independent journalists and bloggers, they are largely unregistered, confined to the digital space, and operate under constant threat of criminalization. As of July 2025, Reporters Without Borders reported that an estimated 38 independent journalists were arbitrarily detained in Vietnamese prisons.
The regime has seriously and unfairly repressed protests and gatherings. Regime crackdowns on peaceful protests have sharply intensified under CPV general secretary Tô Lâm to the point that Freedom House reported 2024 as “the most severe year of repression in decades” as per various analyses. According to human rights organizations, Lâm oversaw the prosecution of at least 43 writers, environmentalists, and labor activists under bogus security enforcement charges in 2024. Peaceful dissenting protests are also seriously repressed by the CPV. A case in point is its response to massive demonstrations in 2016 concerning regime inaction following the Formosa toxic spill disaster, which destroyed the subsistence of many local fishing communities. Many protesters were reportedly beaten by police and thugs hired by local officials. The crackdown culminated in the harsh sentencing of multiple protesters on vague charges. They included a 22-year-old social activist who was handed seven years’ imprisonment and three years of house arrest for his work as a citizen journalist covering the 2016 Formosa disaster and protests. A court also sentenced protest organizer Trần Thị Xuân to nine years in prison and five years of probationary detention in a closed-door trial in April 2018, and a human rights defender at the protests, Lê Đình Lượng, to 20 years’ imprisonment and five years of house arrest at the end of a one-day trial in August 2018. They were both charged with subversion.
The regime has been implicated in several transnational attacks against exiled Vietnamese dissidents. In 2019, for example, the regime abducted blogger Trương Duy Nhất when he was in Thailand to apply for his refugee status with the UNHCR’s office in Bangkok. Nhất had worked with the Vietnamese-language service of Radio Free Asia, a US government-funded news outlet, and written articles critical of the regime. On March 9, 2020, a Hanoi court sentenced him to 10 years in prison after a half-day trial on the bogus charge of “taking advantage of his position and powers during the performance of his official duties.”
Institutions largely fail to serve as independent checks on the regime. Systematic reforms have entrenched one-party dominance, subordinating the judiciary, legislative, and executive to the CPV.
The judiciary fails to check the regime. Vietnamese courts operate within the framework of the people’s court system mandated by laws (for example, under the 2013 Constitution and 2015 Criminal Code) to be loyal to “the Fatherland” and protect the socialist regime and its interests. Therefore, courts often function as instruments of the ruling party, focusing on enforcing its policies and maintaining regime stability rather than serving as an independent arbiter of the law. The majority of the power to interpret the constitution, laws, and ordinances instead rests with the Standing Committee of the National Assembly, the rubber-stamp legislature controlled by the CPV. Courts may review administrative decisions or actions, but the exercise of this authority cannot override regime policy.
The regime entirely controls judicial appointments, removals, and disciplinary action. The Chief Justice is appointed by the National Assembly based on the president’s nomination. Candidates for judicial posts must provide certification of training and education in the state ideology as proof of their understanding of and loyalty to it.
As a result, the judiciary frequently fails to check regime attempts to repress criticism or retaliate against dissidents. It also regularly circumvents fair trial standards and imposes heavy sentences on defendants, such as in the cases of rights advocates Nguyễn Văn Hoá (2017), Trần Thị Xuân (2018), and Lê Đình Lượng (2018). Another recent notable example is the conviction of pro-democracy activist and award-winning author Phạm Đoan Trang, who in 2021 was sentenced to nine years in prison by the People’s Court of Hanoi for “conducting propaganda against the state.” As of October 2025, she remains held at the An Phuoc prison in southern Vietnam, located almost one thousand miles away from her family residence.
The regime incentivizes courts to hold regime officials accountable to uphold a certain image of regime legitimacy. They play an increasingly central role in supporting “Blazing Furnace,” a sweeping anti-corruption campaign launched by the late CPV general secretary Nguyễn Phu Trọng following his reelection in 2016. In July 2023, for instance, the People’s Court of Hanoi convicted 54 regime officials and businesspeople of bribery and abuse of power related to repatriation flights during the COVID-19 pandemic. Former deputy foreign minister Tô Anh Dũng received 16 years’ imprisonment for receiving approximately $900,000 in bribes to add companies to a list of approved repatriation providers, while four other defendants, all of whom previously held key offices at various ministries, received life in prison. As of early 2024, the Blazing Furnace campaign has led to at least 60,000 resignations of party cadres and almost 200,000 facing disciplinary action or criminal charges.
In July 2025, the 2024 Law on the Organization of People’s Courts and its 2025 amendment took effect, restructuring the court system into a three-tier model by abolishing district-level and High People’s Courts. First-instance and appellate authority have been redistributed to the newly created Regional People’s Courts and the Supreme People’s Court. This restructuring was accompanied by the removal of district-level People’s Councils, eliminating even nominal oversight over local district courts. The revised law also grants the Supreme People’s Court expanded authority to appoint lower court leaders and removes fixed judicial terms, effectively insulating judges from external accountability while reinforcing the central court’s and CPV leadership’s vertical control.
The regime has seriously weakened the independence of legislative institutions. The legislature is effectively a party apparatus. All nominations and elections to the National Assembly are controlled by the party. The constitution formally designates the CPV as “the leading force of the State and society”, effectively eliminating the possibility of legislative autonomy. The 1992 Electoral Law empowers the National Assembly Standing Committee to control candidate nominations and intervene at every stage of the electoral process, preventing genuinely independent candidates from running. As a result, the National Assembly functions as a rubber-stamp institution for party policy and plays no meaningful role in scrutinizing party conduct.
The regime has seriously weakened the independence of executive institutions. The executive, including the presidency and ministries, remains entirely subordinated to the CPV, with appointments and dismissals controlled by the Central Committee, the highest organ of authority of the CPV. In 2025, the National Assembly passed Resolution 202, restructuring local governance by abolishing district-level executive institutions and reducing provincial units through mergers. While framed as a cost-saving reform, the move removed layers of local administration and oversight, consolidating authority within the central executive and further weakening horizontal accountability across government levels.
HRF classifies Vietnam as ruled by a fully authoritarian regime.
The Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV) has been the sole ruling party since 1976 and maintains absolute control over all branches of government except the parliament. In August 2024, following the death of longtime CPV General Secretary Nguyễn Phu Trọng that July, then–Vietnamese President Tô Lâm became the ruling party’s general secretary. The new General Secretary also remained in the presidency until October 2024, when CPV General Luong Cuong was appointed to the position. During Lâm’s leadership as general secretary, there have been severe crackdowns, extensive centralization of authority, and transnational repression of dissent. He has intensified pressure on journalists, civil society actors, and critics while consolidating power through reforms in the judiciary, legislature, and executive. Elections and state institutions largely operate as instruments of party control rather than as mechanisms for accountability or public participation.
National elections are a sham. The Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV) is the sole existing political party and has ruled uninterrupted since the founding of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam in 1976. There is no mainstream opposition. The few “independent” candidates – a term that refers to CPV members who are self-nominating, non-CPV members nominated by the party, and self-nominating non-CPV members – that contest elections are subject to prior vetting by the regime and its affiliated organizations. The regime exerts tight control over electoral oversight.
Independent media, civil society leaders, organizations, and regular people face overt and systematic retaliation if they openly criticize the regime. The vast majority of formally registered media outlets are controlled by the regime. Civil society organizations may only work in non-politically sensitive areas and are prone to regime intimidation. Dissidents risk surveillance, harassment, arbitrary arrest and detention, and physical attacks. The regime has been implicated in several transnational attacks against exiled Vietnamese dissidents.
Institutions largely fail to serve as independent checks on the regime. Vietnamese courts operate within the framework of a people’s court system mandated to serve the regime and its interests, depriving it of the power to review regime policies. The regime exercises absolute control over judicial appointments, removals, and disciplinary action. Courts regularly impose harsh sentences on dissidents without adhering to fair trial standards. The legislative branch is firmly captured, with the National Assembly lacking independence due to the Communist Party’s control over candidate nominations and electoral processes, effectively eliminating genuine political competition. Executive authority is similarly subordinated to party rule, a dynamic reinforced by recent administrative reforms that consolidate power vertically and eliminate intermediate levels of government, further reducing opportunities for independent oversight.
National elections are a sham. The CPV monopolizes the political system by excluding real opposition, intimidating independent candidates, and controlling election oversight through a tightly managed party apparatus.
The regime systematically and unfairly bars real, mainstream opposition parties from competing in elections. Only the parliament is directly elected. Its members, known as delegates, elect the president, vice president, and prime minister. Parliamentary polls are held every five years. Given that Vietnam is a one-party state, the CPV is the only political party to contest them. The constitution, adopted in 2013, designates the CPV as the “vanguard of the […] Vietnamese nation.” This clause codifies the CPV’s monopoly on power. Local election laws technically allow any person aged 21 or older to contest elections. However, in practice, all candidates who have won every election since the founding of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam in 1976 have been vetted by the regime, indicating an absence of electoral competition.
To lend the elections a semblance of democratic legitimacy, the regime occasionally allows independent candidates – those who may mount a genuine opposition against it – to run. However, these candidates are vulnerable to intimidation tactics by the regime, preventing them from having a realistic chance to win. This was the case in 2021, for example, when Lương Thế Huy, an LGBTQ+ activist, ran for the National Assembly as a representative of Hanoi, the capital city. On the campaign trail, Huy was targeted with smear campaigns by the regime and its proxies that painted him as a foreign-sponsored radical, and many regime-affiliated online media outlets removed their publications referencing him. He lost the polls despite being one of the most prominent candidates from his city.
The CPV systematically undermines independent electoral oversight. The National Election Council, the election management body, is appointed by the National Assembly. In the past, council members have included the chair of the National Assembly, the vice president, the deputy prime minister, and the chair of the Fatherland Front, an umbrella group comprising the CPV and affiliated organizations. The lack of checks and balances in this appointment process ensures the council is packed with loyalists.
Independent media, civil society leaders, organizations, and regular people face overt and systematic retaliation if they openly criticize the regime. The CPV tightly controls media and civil society, arbitrarily detains critics, violently suppresses protests, and targets dissidents outside of the country.
The regime heavily manipulates media coverage in its favor. Reporters Without Borders ranks Vietnam among the world’s worst countries for press freedom. Most mainstream media are regime-affiliated, meaning that regime entities control their operational structures, funding, and reporting. A small minority is partly funded by the regime or entirely private. Regardless of their ownership and funding, all outlets are required to follow the party line in their reporting. Private or semi-private outlets may not produce their own news and must only republish stories run by their regime-affiliated counterparts. Most journalists occupying leadership positions in the media sector are members of the CPV, ensuring that the outlets they manage remain in strict compliance with the regime’s media rules. In January 2025, the state completed its consolidation of VTC Digital Television – a major state‑run broadcaster operating 13 television channels – into the national broadcaster Voice of Vietnam (VOV) TV. This restructuring effectively eliminated intra‑state media diversity by collapsing multiple channels into a single national broadcaster. In November 2024, the government issued Decree 126, legally expanding government control over nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and civil society groups. This law gives authorities increased powers, potentially allowing them to suspend or dissolve independent associations, tighten registration requirements, and monitor funding and activities. As of December 2025, there has yet to be reported evidence of it being used in such a manner.
The regime has seriously intimidated the media, civil society leaders, organizations, and regular people and unfairly obstructed their work. Vietnam has one of the highest numbers of political prisoners in Southeast Asia, second only to junta-led Burma. Among the individuals the regime has targeted for their criticism is pop star and political activist Mai Khôi, who often advocates for greater political participation for women and other political issues through her songs. At the 2018 Oslo Freedom Forum, Khôi spoke about her experience with regime repression, including having her concerts raided by police, being barred from running for parliament, being banned from singing, and being evicted from her house. While there are independent journalists and bloggers, they are largely unregistered, confined to the digital space, and operate under constant threat of criminalization. As of July 2025, Reporters Without Borders reported that an estimated 38 independent journalists were arbitrarily detained in Vietnamese prisons.
The regime has seriously and unfairly repressed protests and gatherings. Regime crackdowns on peaceful protests have sharply intensified under CPV general secretary Tô Lâm to the point that Freedom House reported 2024 as “the most severe year of repression in decades” as per various analyses. According to human rights organizations, Lâm oversaw the prosecution of at least 43 writers, environmentalists, and labor activists under bogus security enforcement charges in 2024. Peaceful dissenting protests are also seriously repressed by the CPV. A case in point is its response to massive demonstrations in 2016 concerning regime inaction following the Formosa toxic spill disaster, which destroyed the subsistence of many local fishing communities. Many protesters were reportedly beaten by police and thugs hired by local officials. The crackdown culminated in the harsh sentencing of multiple protesters on vague charges. They included a 22-year-old social activist who was handed seven years’ imprisonment and three years of house arrest for his work as a citizen journalist covering the 2016 Formosa disaster and protests. A court also sentenced protest organizer Trần Thị Xuân to nine years in prison and five years of probationary detention in a closed-door trial in April 2018, and a human rights defender at the protests, Lê Đình Lượng, to 20 years’ imprisonment and five years of house arrest at the end of a one-day trial in August 2018. They were both charged with subversion.
The regime has been implicated in several transnational attacks against exiled Vietnamese dissidents. In 2019, for example, the regime abducted blogger Trương Duy Nhất when he was in Thailand to apply for his refugee status with the UNHCR’s office in Bangkok. Nhất had worked with the Vietnamese-language service of Radio Free Asia, a US government-funded news outlet, and written articles critical of the regime. On March 9, 2020, a Hanoi court sentenced him to 10 years in prison after a half-day trial on the bogus charge of “taking advantage of his position and powers during the performance of his official duties.”
Institutions largely fail to serve as independent checks on the regime. Systematic reforms have entrenched one-party dominance, subordinating the judiciary, legislative, and executive to the CPV.
The judiciary fails to check the regime. Vietnamese courts operate within the framework of the people’s court system mandated by laws (for example, under the 2013 Constitution and 2015 Criminal Code) to be loyal to “the Fatherland” and protect the socialist regime and its interests. Therefore, courts often function as instruments of the ruling party, focusing on enforcing its policies and maintaining regime stability rather than serving as an independent arbiter of the law. The majority of the power to interpret the constitution, laws, and ordinances instead rests with the Standing Committee of the National Assembly, the rubber-stamp legislature controlled by the CPV. Courts may review administrative decisions or actions, but the exercise of this authority cannot override regime policy.
The regime entirely controls judicial appointments, removals, and disciplinary action. The Chief Justice is appointed by the National Assembly based on the president’s nomination. Candidates for judicial posts must provide certification of training and education in the state ideology as proof of their understanding of and loyalty to it.
As a result, the judiciary frequently fails to check regime attempts to repress criticism or retaliate against dissidents. It also regularly circumvents fair trial standards and imposes heavy sentences on defendants, such as in the cases of rights advocates Nguyễn Văn Hoá (2017), Trần Thị Xuân (2018), and Lê Đình Lượng (2018). Another recent notable example is the conviction of pro-democracy activist and award-winning author Phạm Đoan Trang, who in 2021 was sentenced to nine years in prison by the People’s Court of Hanoi for “conducting propaganda against the state.” As of October 2025, she remains held at the An Phuoc prison in southern Vietnam, located almost one thousand miles away from her family residence.
The regime incentivizes courts to hold regime officials accountable to uphold a certain image of regime legitimacy. They play an increasingly central role in supporting “Blazing Furnace,” a sweeping anti-corruption campaign launched by the late CPV general secretary Nguyễn Phu Trọng following his reelection in 2016. In July 2023, for instance, the People’s Court of Hanoi convicted 54 regime officials and businesspeople of bribery and abuse of power related to repatriation flights during the COVID-19 pandemic. Former deputy foreign minister Tô Anh Dũng received 16 years’ imprisonment for receiving approximately $900,000 in bribes to add companies to a list of approved repatriation providers, while four other defendants, all of whom previously held key offices at various ministries, received life in prison. As of early 2024, the Blazing Furnace campaign has led to at least 60,000 resignations of party cadres and almost 200,000 facing disciplinary action or criminal charges.
In July 2025, the 2024 Law on the Organization of People’s Courts and its 2025 amendment took effect, restructuring the court system into a three-tier model by abolishing district-level and High People’s Courts. First-instance and appellate authority have been redistributed to the newly created Regional People’s Courts and the Supreme People’s Court. This restructuring was accompanied by the removal of district-level People’s Councils, eliminating even nominal oversight over local district courts. The revised law also grants the Supreme People’s Court expanded authority to appoint lower court leaders and removes fixed judicial terms, effectively insulating judges from external accountability while reinforcing the central court’s and CPV leadership’s vertical control.
The regime has seriously weakened the independence of legislative institutions. The legislature is effectively a party apparatus. All nominations and elections to the National Assembly are controlled by the party. The constitution formally designates the CPV as “the leading force of the State and society”, effectively eliminating the possibility of legislative autonomy. The 1992 Electoral Law empowers the National Assembly Standing Committee to control candidate nominations and intervene at every stage of the electoral process, preventing genuinely independent candidates from running. As a result, the National Assembly functions as a rubber-stamp institution for party policy and plays no meaningful role in scrutinizing party conduct.
The regime has seriously weakened the independence of executive institutions. The executive, including the presidency and ministries, remains entirely subordinated to the CPV, with appointments and dismissals controlled by the Central Committee, the highest organ of authority of the CPV. In 2025, the National Assembly passed Resolution 202, restructuring local governance by abolishing district-level executive institutions and reducing provincial units through mergers. While framed as a cost-saving reform, the move removed layers of local administration and oversight, consolidating authority within the central executive and further weakening horizontal accountability across government levels.
