Laotian Leadership
Since the LPDR was proclaimed in December 1975, its leadership has been remarkably stable and cohesive. The record of continuous service at the highest ranks is equaled by few, if any, regimes in the contemporary world. Laotian leaders have an equally impressive record of unity. Although outside observers have scrutinized the leadership for factions--and some have postulated at various times that such factions might be divided along the lines of MarxistLeninist ideologues versus pragmatists or pro-Vietnamese versus nationalists (or pro-Chinese), there is no solid evidence that the leadership is seriously divided on any critical issues.
The Lao People's Revolutionary Party eventually achieved the complete liberation of the country on December 2, 1975 with the foundation of the Lao People's Democratic Republic and the establishment of the Supreme People's Assembly by a nationwide People's Representatives Congress. Since 1972 the genuine center of political power, as in other communist parties, has resided in the Politburo. Membership of the Politburo, and formerly that of the Secretariat, is drawn from the Central Committee. A small group of men--seven in 1972 and eleven by 1993--have provided the critical leadership of the communist movement in Laos. A signal attribute of this group has been its remarkable cohesion and continuity. The Politburo has been dominated for more than fifteen years communist rule by the same stalwart band of revolutionary veterans.
Kaysone was named secretary general of the then secret LPP upon its establishment, a post he retained until his death in 1992. Nouhak retained his number-two position on the Politburo into 1993. It was not until the Fifth Party Congress that Souphanouvong, Phoumi Vongvichit, and Sisomphone Lovansai (ranking third, fourth, and seventh, respectively) were retired with honorific titles as counselors to the Central Committee. Prime Minister Khamtai Siphandon was promoted to succeed Kaysone as chief of the party, and Phoun Sipaseut advanced a notch in rank. In 1991 the Politburo numbered ten, including only two new members.
The Supreme People's Assembly First Legislature had 45 members, of whom four were women. The Standing Committee consisted of Prince Souphanouvong who was President of the Supreme People's Assembly, Sisomphone LOVANXAY, Sithon KOMMADAM and Faydang LOBLIAYAO who were Vice-Presidents and Khamsouk KEOLA who was Vice-President and Secretary General. On March 26, 1989 Lao people elected the People's Supreme Assembly Second Legislature, comprising of 75 members, of whom five were women. Nouhak PHOUMSAVANH was appointed President.
At the Fifth Party Congress, the Central Committee stabilized in size at fifty-nine members and took on a few younger, more educated men to replace deceased or retired members. At the time, the oldest member was seventy-seven, the youngest thirty-five, with 22 percent over sixty, 30 percent between fifty and fifty-nine, and 40 percent under forty-nine. Only two women are full members of the Central Committee, and two continue as alternates. Thongvin Phomvihan--who had ranked thirty-fifth in 1986--was removed, accompanied by rumors of excessive political influence in her business activities. Notwithstanding this setback to Kaysone's family fortune, their son, Saisompheng Phomvihan, was appointed to the Central Committee, ranking forty-fifth, and was named governor of Savannakhét Province in 1993. This appointment inspired some private muttering about the emerging "princelings," referring as well to Souphanouvong's son, Khamsai Souphanouvong, number thirty-four on the Central Committee, who became minister of finance.
Kaysone Phomvihan was preeminent leader of both the party and the state until his death in November 1992. The Pathet Lao PPL's control of the Lao Patriotic Front (Neo Lao Hak Sat NLHS) was ensured by an interlocking leadership extending from the top to the village level, a control pattern used in other communist-controlled countries. The PPL's secretary general, Kaysone Phomvihan, believed to be the most powerful figure in the Laotian communist movement, was at the same time the NLHS minister of defense, a presidium member, vice chairman of its Central Committee, and reportedly also a member of the Vietnam Worker's Party.
Kaysone's unusual career of leadership had taken him through two decades of revolution and almost another two decades of independence. Born in 1920, Kaysone studied at the Faculty of Law at the University of Hanoi where, in 1942, he joined the struggle against the French colonialists, according to his official biography. Kaysone was known in Hanoi by his Vietnamese name Quoc.
At the National Congress in December 1975, the political report on abolishing the monarchy and establishing a people's democratic republic was read by Kaysone, who was also on the congress presidium. For most of the world, it was the first look at the man who, for thirty years, had led the revolution in Laos from behind the scenes in Vietnam and in the caves of Houaphan. Kaysone presided at the December 2 session. He began by reading a motion to establish the Lao People's Democratic Republic, which was passed by acclamation.
Since the signing in July 1977 of the treaty of friendship and cooperation,and strengthening of "special relations," with the Vietnam neighbor, Laos had entered more and more closely into Hanoi's orbit. Kaysone Phomvihane, the prime minister in the 1980s, was as far back as 1946 a member of the Indochinese Communist Party, the forerunner of the Vietnamese party. Yet, it was the vice chairman of the council of ministers, Nouhak Phoumsavanh, who was regarded in the 1980s as representing the pro-Hanoi tendency in the political bureau.
For at least a decade after independence, Kaysone avoided contact with the masses, Western diplomats, and journalists, remaining heavily guarded and secretive, in some ways continuing an earlier shadowy revolutionary style. Kaysone's caution may have been influenced by concern for his safety because several attempts had been made on his life during the first few years of his rule. However, during 1989 and 1990, Kaysone moved about more freely in Laos and showed himself more openly to the outside world. For the first time, he made state visits to Japan, China, and Sweden. He gave interviews to Western journalists and was more available to meet with Western officials. His public statements suggested that he was impressed by the level of development he had seen in affluent nations and that he was open to new techniques to bring economic progress to Laos under the leadership of the LPRP.
Although the political careers of most communist leaders in Europe and Asia had been terminated when fundamental new policies were introduced to their regimes, Kaysone continued his leadership without challenge, showing unusual political agility and ideological flexibility. Kaysone had long embraced Marxism- Leninism, following the pattern of his Vietnamese and Soviet mentors. When evidence of change in the communist world began to appear, Kaysone propounded the New Economic Mechanism in 1986, invoking Lenin, but soon moved control of state enterprises to autonomous firms, and by 1989 edged more deliberately toward a market economy. Kaysone appeared to be a pragmatic communist leader, open to the ideas of outsiders and zealous for--although unsuccessful at producing--economic growth.
Khamtai Siphandon
Upon Kaysone's death, the person who had been second in party Politburo rank as long as Kaysone had been first, Nouhak Phoumsavan, born in 1914, was passed over as party chairman -- presumably for reasons of age and ill health -- in favor of the third-ranking member, General Khamtai Siphandon. However, in keeping with the Laotian communist practice of maintaining continuity and honoring seniority, Nouhak was promoted from deputy prime minister to president of state.
The new LPRP chairman, Khamtai, also retained his government post as prime minister, suggesting that he has consolidated his role as the preeminent political leader. Born in 1924 in Champasak Province, Khamtai is the youngest surviving member of the group that founded the Free Laos Front (Neo Lao Issara--see Glossary) in 1950 and the LPP in 1955. He was thought to have spent part of World War II (1939-45) in India and was employed as a postal worker in southern Laos after the war. He joined the Lao Issara (Free Laos) in 1946 and remained with the Pathet Lao group that split with the Lao Issara in 1949.
Assigned to military and political functions in the southern Laos sector, Khamtai was elected to the Central Committee of the Free Laos Front in 1950. According to a biography published in the Vietnamese newspaper, Nhan Dan (People) [Hanoi], Khamtai was appointed chief of staff of the Lao People's Liberation Army (LPLA) in 1954, and in 1957 he was elected to membership in the Central Committee of the LPP. He directed the party's propaganda and training functions during 1959 and 1960 and in 1961 was named supreme commander of the LPLA. In 1962 he was appointed to the Standing Committee of the party's Central Committee and named deputy secretary of the General Military Committee.
Khamtai moved steadily forward in the LPRP Politburo to the third ranking position, serving as minister of national defense from 1975 to 1991 and as deputy prime minister before his elevation to the post of prime minister in 1991. Khamtai's background in the military establishment, which has been a conservative force in Laotian politics, is thought to make him particularly sensitive to security concerns. He has a reputation as a hardliner and appears to be more inclined toward secrecy than Kaysone. Before assuming the post of prime minister, he had little exposure to Westerners, although his contacts increased when he took on his new task.
On 23 March 2006 Laos’ President Khamtay Siphandone resigned as chief of the LPRP as the party’s 8th Congress ended, and was replaced by Vice President Choummaly Sayasone. The Congress also elected two new members to the Politburo, and expanded the size of the Central Committee from 53 to 55. The two new Politburo members are Vice President and Foreign Minister Somsavat Lengsavad and former Central Bank governor Pany Yathotou, who became the first woman to be admitted into the powerful Politburo. Choummaly replaced Khamtay as President of Laos, when it held national elections in April 2006.
Other Leaders
The deputy prime minister for foreign affairs in 1993 was Phoun Sipaseut, a veteran Politburo member who headed the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for seventeen years. Below him, in the rank of minister of foreign affairs, is Somsavat Lengsavat, who ranked fifty-first in the LPRP Central Committee. In Kaysone's time, an "inner cabinet" of six party leaders carried the major decisionmaking responsibility for the government. Of this group, only three members were living as of mid-1994 -- Nouhak, Khamtai, and Phoun.
It was uncertain whether Kaysone's successors would continue the inner cabinet, but there appears to be some generational conflict. A transition will be required from leaders who were educated by service in the secret revolutionary party to those who may have studied abroad -- very likely in France -- before 1975 and whose membership in the party came during a more open era. One of the vice ministers of foreign affairs in 1992, for example, studied in the French military academy, Saint Cyr, as did a former minister of external economic relations. The latter was dealing very adroitly in 1991 with foreign donors, and at the Fifth Party Congress, his rank on the Central Committee rose from twenty-sixth to sixteenth. His counterpart in the Ministry of Finance, however, a former provincial governor with more than three decades of service in the revolutionary movement, was propelled from forty-third to tenth in the Central Committee and gained membership in the Politburo.
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