Vo Van Tuong has been appointed as the new President of Vietnam
The Communist Party, which holds Vietnam with an iron fist, led a major anti-corruption campaign that prompted the former president to resign in January.
According to state media, Vo Van Tuong is the sole candidate for the presidency, with 487 votes out of 488 National Assembly votes.
AFP
Vietnam inaugurated a new head of state on Thursday, at the center of a major anti-corruption campaign orchestrated by the Communist Party, the undisputed power that has ensnared the previous president.
According to state media, Vo Van Tuong, who won 487 of the 488 National Assembly votes, is the only candidate to succeed Nguyen Xuan Phuc, who resigned last January. The new president, 52, said he was “committed to fighting corruption and unhealthy practices”.
Vietnam, ruled with an iron fist by the Communist Party (CPV), is going through a series of behind-the-scenes unrest with the departure of several senior officials suspected of corruption related to the management of the pandemic. The movement, founded by independence hero Ho Chi Minh, launched a major anti-corruption purge that culminated in the resignation of Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc at the height of the health crisis.
These campaigns, repeated throughout the country’s history, “are a way of telling people that the party punishes the bad guys and that the general secretary must rule within a state apparatus plagued by personal rivalries and ‘money,'” explains Benoît de Treguelot, director of research at the Institute for Strategic Studies of the Military Academy (IRSEM).
“apparatchik”
In the past ten years, 168,000 members have been suspended, including more than 7,300 for corruption, the party said. The enthronement of Vo Van Tuong was the “last step” by Nguyen Phu Trong, the PCV’s general secretary, the regime’s most powerful man, “in his campaign to shape the party’s present and future”, analyzed Jonathan London. , an expert based in the Netherlands.
The former philosophy student, considered close to Trang, has served since 2021 as vice-chairman of the Central Steering Committee to Prevent and Combat Corruption and Unhealthy Practices. He also heads the propaganda commission of the PCV, a key body in this authoritarian country, which has one of the worst students in the world ranking of freedom of expression.
Vo Van Duong is also the youngest member of the PCV’s powerful Politburo, whose current 16 members (including one woman) determine the country’s political direction. The promotion makes him next in line to the 78-year-old Trong in 2026.
“Thuang doesn’t have a significant political base,” says Jonathan London moderate, who believes “he’s more likely to make a switch.” Vo Van Tuong “An Instrument of Organization. “His appointment does not represent a turning point,” says Benoît de Treguelot, emphasizing the “stability” of the party.
scandals
The president, the head of state, is the face of the regime abroad, but remains a less influential political figure than the general secretary of the PCV. The management of the epidemic was the subject of extensive scrutiny by the communist power.
At least a hundred senior civil servants and business leaders, including the health minister and the mayor of the capital Hanoi, have been arrested in recent months in connection with a scandal involving overcharging for Covid screening tests.
Around forty people, mostly diplomats and police, were arrested as part of another investigation into a repatriation campaign at the height of the pandemic.
In its latest annual report on the world’s human rights situation, Amnesty International condemned the hardening crackdown on dissent from the regime.
AFP
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