Political stability MAY be attained in a variety of ways.
Political stability through "correct leadership" is an IMPOSITION.
Impositions --- in whatever clever or fancy phrases you want --- don't and can't build lasting governance.
Unlike most of you nice and courteous people, I don't think Laos "political stability" under the "correct leadership" of the LPDR is true or lasting. Nor do I agree that it's because of this "correct leadership" that Laos people have enjoyed the 22 folds of increase incomes in the last 40 years.
When you had ONLY ONE WAY, ON IDEOLOGY, to do things --- with all the other ways and ideas being OUTLAW --- you can test NEITHER the soundness nor the validity of whatever that's been asserted in the name of that "correct leadership."
Sound approaches and sound thinking DO NOT work that way; asserting that they do ("at least they do work that way HERE in our nation, among our people," etc) doesn't make it true.
On the other hand, if we had to find ONE good thing about the Communists, I'd say it was its FORCING of the various groups to come together, to a higher degree, than it was under the old regimes; and more than forcing people together, it explicitly codified that ALL CITIZENS are equal under the law (however we may judge THAT law to be).
To me, that's much bigger and more important than these nice-sounding big BS like political stability, unique or unprecedented LPDR correct leadership and development, etc.
And, please, note that it is more or less THE SAME THING in most Western countries which had had TERRIBLE history of discrimination, racism, ethnic oppression and persecution, etc.
Take America, for example. Whites WERE NOT gonna give women --- including White women, their own mothers, daughters, sisters, wives, etc --- and Blacks and Asians and Hispanics equal rights, if the latter didn't fight and die for such rights. And GENERATIONS of progressive/liberal Whites, Asians, Blacks, women, Hispanics, et al HAD FOUGHT for the LEGAL EQUAL RIGHTS we enjoy today.
Communism, overnight, did it through top-down mandates.
And that's ONE of the things of what authoritarian regimes are able to do so much more efficiently and quicker than back-and-forth struggles, with minorities struggling on their own in a country where SLAVES and SERVITUDE were a big part of life, as it was in America, from the 1600s through the 1800s...
And, so, while I would NEVER be able to live in an authoritarian society like Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Laos, China, Vietnam, North Korea, Cuba, etc., even I could say a good word about LAOS COMMUNISTS declaring that all its many ethnic groups are now equal in the eye of the law (even if, we all know, in ACTUAL CASES, the rich and powerful and connected, in all societies including Communist ones, WILL ALWAYS be MORE EQUAL than the poor and the uneducated)...
And that WAS CLEARLY NOT TRUE, from what my parents and elders said about the OLD LAO of their youth, under the various kings and land owning elites who, with the king's blessing, helped to run Laos... of the old...
To me, then, THAT single issue --- on public equality among all citizens of Laos (even if privately any one could still hate others and call them names) --- was a big watershed achievement, for the LPDR...
But we know IMPOSITION, again, never has been good or lasting.... especially when the lid is blown!
Hopefully, Laos various ethnic groups have learned from the experiences of OTHERS from around the world, and have made concerted political and educational efforts to make that de jure equality a de facto one, too, so that a person is judged only by the CONTENT of his or her character and NOT by the ethnicity or skin tone he or she was born into/with, no fault of his or her own...