Singer Tra My won this year’s Lan song xanh (Blue Wave) promising female singer award

A series of high profile awards have come under fire, after favored entrants failed to take home major prizes, or even make it into the finals.

After more than eight months’ of online voting, the finalists, who will appear at Nguyen Du Sports Complex in Ho Chi Minh City’s District 1 at 8 p.m. on December 21, were announced recently.

But after the announcement, several famous models, including Trang Nhung, Truong Thi May and Phi Thanh Van, withdrew from the competition because they were unhappy with the unclear voting criteria, reducing the number of finalists from 40 to 28.

The finalists had been chosen through an online poll via website www.nguoimau.eva.vn, open to members of the public.

“I was a supporter of the awards when it debuted last year because it motivates models to improve professionally and make contributions to the local fashion scene,” said Ta Nguyen Phuc, chairman of the Thanh Nien (young people) Fashion Club.

“From what I’ve seen, several famed models are frustrated with the awards’ criteria this year and lack trust in the final results.”

“In my opinion, as this is an award for professional models, the jury should have a greater say in choosing finalists than the online vote,” Phuc said.

Thu Trang, who represents competition organizer T.A.F Co., said the audience only voted in the first round of the awards.

“In the next rounds, especially the grand finale, the audience only votes for one award. The jury will decide the winners of the other awards,” Trang said.

“As the organizer, we respect both the public vote and the jury assessments and those who have more votes will earn the final nomination,” Trang said.

The Giai thuong nguoi mau Vietnam 2008 isn’t the only competition to trigger complaints from the public about the voting process.

The winner of the most promising female singer section of this year’s Lan song xanh (Blue wave) awards was Tra My, one of the 10 finalists in last year’s Vietnam Idol competition.

She beat Phuong Vy, the first Vietnam Idol winner, another Vietnam Idol finalist Thao Trang and teen pop idol Bao Thy.

But the public and some of the 43 music journalists on the judging panel couldn’t figure out how My won.

The organizer refused to reveal which journalists voted for My or even who the 43 reporters on the judging panel were.

The music journalists could identify only 35 reporter-judges and only seven of them had voted for My. No matter how hard they tried, the reporters couldn’t identify the other eight reporters who allegedly voted for My.

In another case, Vu Ngoc Dang and Tang Thanh Ha, director and leading actress in the hit TV series Bong dung muon khoc (Suddenly wanna cry), which aired on VTV1 in the last two months, withdrew their nominations for the excellent director and leading actress categories in this year’s Mai vang (Yellow apricot) awards, announced by Nguoi Lao Dong newspaper last week.

Dang and Ha said they withdrew because series lead actor Luong Manh Hai, who had been announced as the leading contender for the favorite lead actor section, had been eliminated in the audience vote even though he’d won critical and public praise for his work.

Meanwhile, the manager of pop favorite Dan Truong said early last week the singer would also withdraw from the Mai Vang awards.

Truong also pulled out of this year’s Lan song xanh awards, saying he wanted younger colleagues to receive the honors.

Reported by Thanh Nien staff