The dust appears to have settled on the unprecedented tumult in Vietnam’s leadership with the election of Vo Van Thuong as president.
At the end of December 2022, two deputy prime ministers, Vu Duc Dam and Pham Binh Minh, were forced to resign, the latter also expelled from the elite politburo of the Communist Party of Vietnam. Days before Tet, President and former Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc give up of the presidency and the Politburo.
For a regime that likes to portray itself as less authoritarian but as politically stable as China, it’s been a tumultuous few months.
All three became embroiled in Secretary General Nguyen Phu Trong’s “Blazing Furnace” anti-corruption campaign. Dam and Minh were blamed for pandemic-related scandals in the ministries under his supervision; although neither was directly involved. That is arguably less the case with Phuc, who denied any involvement on your part or that of your family in the Viet A scandalor other business transactions.
Three questions are worth asking: first, who is the new president? Does his appointment matter? Second, are more heads likely to roll? Third, what does this portend in the run-up to the 14th Party Congress scheduled for January 2026?
Who is Vo Van Thuong?
Vo Van Thuong is the youngest member of the Politburo, now in his second term. He is believed to be loyal to General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong.
Since 2016, Thuong’s career has been within the internal echelons of the Communist Party of Vietnam, as a high-level ideologue. He was the head of the central committee’s education and propaganda commission and chairman of the Central Council for Political Thought, a top advisory body to ensure that government policies are consistent with ideology. He also served in the party secretariat, which is in charge of the day-to-day affairs of the party.
That is why many label him an “apparatchik”. But before 2016, his record is much less doctrinaire, when he was a senior official in the Ho Chi Minh City party committee.
Thuong’s appointment will not influence Vietnam’s foreign policy, which is constrained by the competing needs to attract foreign investment and maintain the party’s monopoly on power. Foreign policy is set by the central committee and administered by the Politburo. The presidency is ceremonial and Thuong has no experience in foreign policy.
But for the international business community, he is a new face. And although Phuc had less power as president than as prime minister, he was a reassuring face for foreign investors and leaders.
while there was speculation that for Lam, the public security minister could become president, since he will soon have a limited term in that position and may have tried to run him from the presidency as his predecessor did, he could not get enough support.
It turns out that the guy who runs the secret police and uses corruption investigations as a weapon turns out to be not the most beloved figure.
Are more heads likely to roll?
Allegations of corruption surrounding Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh have increased. The rumor mill is in overdrive trying to connect you to Nguyen Thi Thanh Nhan the fugitive former CEO of the Advanced International Limited Company (AIC), who was convicted in January in a $6.3 million fraud case.
But in Vietnam’s opaque media environment, this could simply be fueled by Chinh’s rivals.
While he may be forced to step down, Chinh is likely to serve out his term for three reasons: First, markets would be rocked by more turmoil. There is already real frustration that decision-making in a number of critical sectors, including public health, real estate, banking and energy, is at a complete standstill. A change in leadership would set everything back even further.
Second, there is the question of who would replace him. There are not many people in the Politburo with economic experience at the national level.
The head of the National Assembly, Vuong Dinh Hue, has the most, but he is also one of the two candidates to become the next general secretary of the party. And given Trong’s age and history of health problems, it’s likely he’ll stick around.
The person to watch is the newly appointed permanent deputy prime minister, Tran Luu Quang. (The label “permanent” means that he can deputize for the prime minister.) The recent Politburo meeting decided to elevate Quang. Although he is a rising star, Quang still doesn’t have much experience at the national level, his most important role being as the head of the Haiphong party. He is in a position to be elevated in the 14th Congress.
Third, Trong has to be worried about a possible backlash. At the 13th Party Congress in 2021, he was unable to get his hand-picked successor, Tran Quoc Vuong, who headed the Central Inspection Commission, elected. Vuong posed too great a threat to the rest of the Politburo and was unceremoniously removed from the 13th Politburo, which is why Trong stayed on for a third term.
There are signs of a setback against Trong, who has amassed an unprecedented degree of power now that rivals such as Nguyen Xuan Phuc have been ousted and protégés are in positions of power.
That doesn’t mean heads won’t roll below that top level. In 2022, an unprecedented number of senior officials, including members of the Central Committee, were prosecuted, reprimanded, and/or expelled from the party.
The emergency Politburo meeting elected three new members of the Central Inspection Commission, the body responsible for party discipline and anti-corruption investigations. More investigations are expected after the party’s midterm congress expected in April.
What does this portend?
The party seeks stability and predictability. Each five-year party congress sees a third turnover of its Politburo in the interest of continuity.
At present, only five of the 17 members have served the two terms required to become general secretaries, but three – Pham Minh Chinh, To Lam and Truong Thi Mai – are less likely candidates.
Mai, for her part, has just taken over from Thuong as a permanent member of the party secretariat, which is a very important and time-consuming position.
That leaves Vuong Dinh Hue, currently the president of the National Assembly but a former finance minister, and President Vo Van Thuong.
At 52, Thuong is young enough to serve two terms in that position without an age waiver. His service within the party apparatus, rather than the government, is another thing in his favor. Hue is older, now 65, and would require an age waiver if he were to become secretary general.
But Thuong has some responsibilities. On the one hand, although he was born in the Red River delta, his family is from the south and regrouped in the north after the division of the country in 1954; most of his career was in the south and he identifies as a southerner. The secretary general has always been a northerner, but Thuong could be that transitional figure.
The second is the fact that the presidency is often a “retirement” job, not a springboard.
Nguyen Phu Trong, should he not resign sooner due to health problems, is determined to leave nothing to chance at the 14th Congress. With acolytes Thuong and Hue in place, he is quietly securing his legacy and making sure there is no repeat of the 13th Congress when he failed to get his protégé elected.
Zachary Abuza is a professor at the National War College in Washington and an adjunct at Georgetown University. The opinions expressed herein are my own and do not reflect the position of the US Department of Defense, the National War College, Georgetown University or the FRG.
