The surprise result has thrown a major riverfront renewal programme in southern Vietnam into a political storm. Nine of the 15 seats on the Can Tho Riverfront Renewal Panel went to the group, which formed to oppose relocation plans and has no chair, spokesperson or agreed platform.
The panel can approve or reject spending proposals for a fund worth ₫1.8 trillion (about €61 million), including drainage upgrades and compensation for households moved by construction. Its first vote, last month, paused three packages worth ₫286 billion (about €9.7 million), leaving road and canal works in limbo.
How a protest became a slate
At Monday’s hearing, held in Can Tho’s riverside civic hall, the city’s ballot administrator said staff had entered the group’s 27 nominees as a single candidate slate. The online form offered no category for a leaderless collective, the official said, and a clerk selected “registered group” to make the submission fit the system.
The result gave the collective nine seats under the panel’s proportional allocation rules. “We thought we were signing a petition against the removals,” said Lola Opeyemi, a member who testified at the hearing. “Nobody told us that ticking one box could put us in charge of a billion-dollar programme.”
The ballot was meant to ask who should advise the city, not hand a protest group the keys to the budget.
Yance Saputra, ballot administrator
The panel’s remaining six seats went to candidates backed by ward offices and construction associations. Saputra said the collective’s nominees had been checked against residency lists, but the category error was not caught before results were certified. He declined to say who had approved the final ballot design.
Officials and residents clash
City officials defended the fund’s safeguards, arguing that the panel cannot release money without a second approval from the municipal finance office. Magdalen Glover, deputy director of the renewal programme, told the hearing that the pause had delayed contractors’ payments but had not cancelled any projects. “This is not a blank cheque,” she said.
Residents who opposed the ballot result said that safeguard did not answer the core problem: the panel had been given authority through a vote they believed was only an objection survey. Several residents held up copies of the original paper notice, which described the exercise as a way to “collect views” on relocation and did not mention seats or spending powers.
The collective has demanded that the city rerun the ballot and suspend all panel decisions until then. Its members have also refused to nominate a chair, saying the rotating arrangement they adopted is meant to stop any one person from claiming to speak for the group. The panel’s first temporary chair, Timothée J. Pichon, said he would not resign before a formal ruling.
The dispute carries immediate consequences for households along the canal network, where the city plans to move 640 homes and upgrade 18 km (11 miles) of drains. Officials say the works are intended to reduce seasonal flooding; residents say the relocation terms and compensation schedules remain unclear. No household has yet been moved under the disputed packages.
The inquiry is due to hear from the city finance office and the panel’s other members on 10 November. Its chair has the power to recommend a new ballot, but not to dissolve the panel. Until then, the finance office will review urgent payments individually, a process officials estimate could add at least six weeks to the programme.
