“It will help calm the situation, especially after To Lam gives up the presidency,” said Le Dang Doanh, an economist and former government adviser in Hanoi. The party leadership, he added, is filling the positions of officials to ensure smooth governance and prepare them for the party congress.
The National Assembly will vote on a presidential candidate in October, according to a post on the government website quoting Prime Minister Bui Van Cuong. In Vietnam’s political system, the party’s central committee will nominate a presidential candidate for parliament to vote on.
In a break with party tradition in Vietnam, Trong assumed the presidency in 2018 following the death of then-President Tran Dai Quang before leaving office in 2021.
“Lam’s clinging to the presidency would raise questions from the outside about the stability and direction of Vietnam,” said Carl Thayer, professor emeritus at the University of New South Wales in Australia. Now the government will again have “four people at the top, not three.”
Trong’s death has added to uncertainty within the government, which has seen the arrest of numerous senior officials and business leaders in a years-long anti-corruption campaign. Two presidents, three deputy prime ministers and other party officials have recently resigned.
Former Deputy Prime Minister Khai was in charge of the economy and in June unsuccessfully urged Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen to grant Vietnam market economy status.
He was punished for violations related to an investigation into a holiday and residential project, according to the government’s website. Representatives of Khai were not immediately available for comment.
Deputy Prime Minister Tran Luu Quang will also resign and take over as chairman of the party’s Central Economic Commission.
The three new deputy prime ministers are Foreign Minister Bui Thanh Son, Finance Minister Ho Duc Phoc and Nguyen Hoa Binh, who was dismissed from his post as Chief Justice of the Supreme People’s Court of Vietnam.
Phoc and Son will retain their ministerial posts until parliament elects their successors, the government statement said.
Lam, who officially took office as the new party leader on August 3, said he would “determinedly” continue his aggressive push to fight corruption while working to reduce bureaucratic bottlenecks to help the economy.
But the ongoing investigations have slowed down the government’s work.
“Vietnamese businesspeople have shared the view on social media that parts of the government are paralyzed by fear of being implicated in anti-corruption investigations,” Giang Nguyen said ahead of the parliamentary announcement on Monday.
Vietnamese businesspeople have expressed the view on social media that parts of the government are paralyzed by fear of being implicated in anti-corruption investigations.
And some observers also see the campaign as an opportunity to eliminate political rivals in the power struggles behind the scenes.
Foreign investors, said Giang Nguyen, “do not know who is at the top and who is at the bottom in the power struggle that has been going on for over a year.” This fuels fears that the measures could lead to “socialist-inspired nationalism” like China experienced under Xi, which would lead to a less friendly attitude toward foreign investors, said Giang Nguyen.
But Lam, he added, is known as a pragmatist rather than an ideologue and values ”foreign investors and their role in taking the Vietnamese economy to the next level of development.”
