Vietnam’s recent political turmoil intensified on Friday with the resignation of the National Assembly speaker, a senior government official amid a growing anti-corruption campaign and questions about the country’s stability.
Vietnam National Assembly Speaker Vuong Dinh Hue submitted his resignation on Friday after the Central Supervisory Commission found that he had violated regulations against Communist Party members. The regulations were not disclosed, but they were issued four days after his assistant was detained on suspicion of abuse of power.
“According to the Central Executive Committee, Mr. Vuong Dinh Hue’s violations and shortcomings have caused a deterioration of public opinion and affected the reputation of the Party, the country, and Mr. Vuong personally,” the Vietnamese government said in a Facebook post. I mentioned it in the post.
Hue was one of the “four pillars” of Vietnam’s leadership, the others being Communist Party leader, prime minister and president, and was considered a candidate for future party leadership. His resignation is likely to increase fears among Vietnamese officials of an escalating power struggle ahead of a leadership change in 2026 and upset foreign investors who have flocked to the country in recent years.
Hue is the fourth Politburo member to resign or be removed from office since 2021. Last month, President Vo Van Thuong resigned after saying he had violated Communist Party rules. He became the second president to resign in just over a year.
The current issue in Vietnam is who will succeed Communist Party leader Nguyen Phu Trong. Chong, who was reappointed as general secretary for an unprecedented third five-year term in 2021, is 80 years old and is believed to be in poor health.
In 2016, Mr. Chong launched the anti-corruption campaign “Burning Furnace,” arguing that corruption could threaten the survival of the Communist Party. Thousands of party members at all levels of government have been fired, dismissed from the party, or imprisoned, but many suspect some of these targets are political purges within a closed political system. is in doubt.
Mr. Hue seemed to be popular among his colleagues. In October 2023, he received 91% of the total votes in a vote of confidence among 44 members of the Diet, the highest percentage of votes in the group.
Earlier this month, Trong led a high-level Vietnamese delegation to China. He last appeared in public early Friday morning, when he and the prime minister visited the mausoleum of former president and revolutionary hero Ho Chi Minh, ahead of next week’s 49th anniversary of the end of the Vietnam War and the reunification of North and South Korea. South Vietnam under communist rule.
