The apparent purge of Vo Van Thuong, a rising political star and the second Vietnamese president in a row to resign, has caused public consternation.
On Thursday, Vietnam’s parliament formally accepted Thuong’s resignation after more than a year in office.
Thuong’s departure leaves a potential gap in the list of leadership candidates as Vietnam’s most powerful politician, 79-year-old General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong, prepares to hand over power in the coming years.
Vietnamese have told This Week in Asia they are anxious that the anti-corruption campaign, which has targeted top politicians and wealthy businessmen since 2020, now includes another high-ranking figure.
“Everything is fast and furious,” said Minh, a Ho Chi Minh City resident who requested anonymity, adding: “Who will be the next president? I have no idea how this country will be run.
Thuong’s resignation follows that of Ngyuen Xuan Phuc, the former head of the powerful Politburo, as a purge of the Communist Party’s top ranks continues.
The sudden resignation comes as Vietnam, one of Southeast Asia’s fastest-growing major economies, plans to invest in the region, with global companies such as Intel, Apple and Microsoft looking to hedge risks by moving their supply chains out of China.
Last year, Vietnam was the only country to host both US President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping, signalling its strategic importance to both superpowers.
“His departure is a big shock for Vietnamese politics,” said Nguyen Khac Giang, a visiting fellow at the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute, adding that the departure of two leaders in less than two years does not bode well for a country often praised for its political stability.
Alleged corruption in infrastructure projects
Although the role is largely ceremonial, the presidency is one of the four most powerful positions in the communist country’s political system. Thuong is also known to have close ties to General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong, Vietnam’s most powerful politician and the chief architect of the party’s anti-corruption campaign.
Thuong was elected by parliament in March 2023, about two months after his predecessor resigned to take responsibility for another anti-corruption case.
According to state media reports, Thuong’s sentence came after police last month arrested the chairman of the Phuc Son Group, a private construction company, for ‘violating accounting regulations with serious consequences’. A subsequent investigation allegedly uncovered Vo Van Thuong’s links to contracts for infrastructure projects when he was party chief of Quang Ngai province from 2011 to 2013.
His fall also creates a bureaucratic vacuum for the party, which will hold its next congress in 2026 and is likely to elect a replacement for General Secretary Trong.
“In the current Politburo, there are only three members who can be elected to the four pillars of leadership – party secretary, prime minister, head of state and speaker of the National Assembly,” Carlyle Thayer, professor emeritus of politics at UNSW’s School of Humanities and Social Sciences, told the South China Morning Post: “Had Thuong not resigned, he would have been the youngest of the four members. Any other sitting member of the Politburo would have needed a special exemption from the mandatory retirement age of 65 to serve in one of the top four posts.”
The Communist Party of Vietnam has been waging a major anti-corruption campaign for some time. The campaign targets politicians as well as businessmen.
Earlier this month, Vietnamese property tycoon Truong My Lan was found guilty of embezzlement, bribery, abuse of power through family and proxies, and using “ghost” companies to obtain loans in a US$12 billion bank fraud.
Prosecutors recommended the death penalty for Lan on Tuesday.
Also on Tuesday, Do Anh Dung, chairman of property developer Tan Hoang Minh, and his son Do Hoang Viet were charged with illegally issuing bonds to raise more than US$349 million, according to state media.
