The political participation of local citizen in the elections of local leaders in Vietnam

Purpose This study aims to identify the level of political participation of local citizen in 208 districts representing for 63 provinces and cities in Vietnam and consider the effects of candidate's attributes, local political contextual factors and other local citizen's demographic characteristics on the elections of local leaders in Vietnam. Design/methodology/approach By using Probit model and data about provincial governance and public administration performance index and self-survey about local leaders in the districts, this paper shows the different effects of candidates' attributes, local political context and other local citizen's characteristics on the first and second elections of local leaders in Vietnam. Findings The result indicates the probability of candidates being elected in the first term depends on their characteristics, local political context and local citizen. However, the reelection of local leaders for a second term depends much on their characteristics and local political context not on demographic characteristics of local citizen. The satisfaction rate of local citizen and being an incumbent for the first term are driving forces for the local citizen to elect their leader for the second term. Meanwhile, local political context such as local transparency, local official development assistance project and citizen satisfaction will increase the likelihood of local leaders being elected for the first and second terms. Research limitations/implications The major limitation of this study is the data of the self-survey because it only provides basic but not complete characteristics of candidates and local contexts in some typical districts in 63 provinces and cities across the country. Practical implications This paper includes policy implications for candidates who want to be elected for both terms and local governance in Vietnam. The government needs to focus on building human resources for local administration to meet the requirements of building a clean, strong, modern and anticorruption administrative system. Originality/value This paper extends the analysis on examining the characteristics of candidates and local citizen as well as local political context influencing the elections of local leaders, getting involved in the Vietnam context, still underresearched, especially with reference to political participation of local citizen.