HANOI (AFP) – Vietnam’s national assembly will elect the country’s new president in October, state media said Tuesday, the latest top-level change during an unusually turbulent period for the communist state.
The presidency is one of the key roles in Vietnam’s four-pillar leadership structure, which also includes the Communist Party general secretary — the top position — the prime minister, and the head of the National Assembly.
“The National Assembly will complete the presidency position at its regular session in October,” state-run Voice of Vietnam said Tuesday, quoting national assembly sources.
Current President To Lam was named general secretary or head of the ruling Communist Party this month following the death of his predecessor, Nguyen Phu Trong.
Trong held both positions at the same time between October 2018 and April 2021.
For decades, political changes in one-party Vietnam were carefully orchestrated with an emphasis on cautious stability.
But a major anti-corruption purge dubbed the “blazing furnace” swept up numerous politicians and officials in recent years, including some of the country’s top leaders, throwing Vietnam into unfamiliar political upheaval.
Since 2021, two presidents — Nguyen Xuan Phuc and his successor Vo Van Thuong — resigned as part of the anti-graft campaign, while three deputy prime ministers were also caught up.
On Monday the rubber-stamp national assembly announced three new deputy prime ministers, a chief judge, a chief prosecutor and two ministers.
