To Lam replaced Vo Van Thuong
Bangkok:
Vietnam’s parliament voted Public Security Minister To Lam as the country’s new president on Wednesday, after a major anti-corruption campaign forced his predecessor to resign.
Thousands of people – including several government and business leaders – were caught up in the “fiery furnace” of corruption crackdowns carried out in this Southeast Asian country, led by Communist Party general secretary Nguyen Phu Trong.
Analysts said Lam, who is deputy head of the anti-corruption steering committee, used her investigations as a weapon to take down her political rivals.
In her first statements as president, Lam said she was “determined to combat corruption and negative phenomena”.
Lam replaces Vo Van Thuong, who resigned in March over what the party called “violations and deficiencies” after just a year in office.
Led by the general secretary of the Communist Party, Vietnam has a four-person leadership structure that also includes the president, prime minister and head of the National Assembly.
The president of the National Assembly also resigned in April due to “violations and deficiencies”, meaning that two of the country’s four top positions had been vacant for a month.
Lam, 66, has been Minister of Public Security since 2016 and has taken a hard line on human rights movements in the communist country.
It appeared that he would hold the presidency and the Ministry of Public Security (MPS) position simultaneously, which would have been a first for Vietnam.
But hours before the secret vote, parliamentarians agreed that they would free him from his powerful role.
“The indecision over the MPS position shows that other members of the elite are hesitant to grant the MPS to any of To Lam’s protégés,” Nguyen Khac Giang, a visiting researcher at ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute, told AFP.
“And To Lam himself is reluctant to relinquish control over the main executioner of the anti-corruption campaign,” he said.
The National Assembly elects the president by secret vote and deputies approve the results.
Lam won 472 of 473 votes.
On Monday, Tran Thanh Man, 61, was named the new head of the National Assembly, and the party named four new Politburo members.
Political unrest is unusual in Vietnam, and for years all changes have been carefully managed, with an emphasis on cautious stability.
Over the past 18 months, Vietnam has also seen the resignations of its deputy prime minister and the head of the party’s economic committee, while its once 18-member parliament briefly fell to 12 members.
Former President Vo Van Thuong’s predecessor, Nguyen Xuan Phuc, also resigned during this period.
Steaks and noodle soup
Lam has spent her entire career within the secretive MPS, which deals with monitoring dissent and surveilling activists in the authoritarian state.
Human rights groups say the government has in recent years stepped up its crackdown on civil society groups.
Two hundred activists are currently in prison, according to Vietnam-focused human rights organization The 88 Project.
Three years ago, he was at the center of a scandal that sparked online outrage in Vietnam, when he was filmed eating steak covered in gold leaf in a London restaurant – shortly after laying a wreath at Karl Marx’s tomb.
The restaurant, Nusr-Et Steakhouse, named after Turkish chef Nusret Gokce — known to his nearly 40 million Instagram followers as Salt Bae — serves steaks wrapped in edible 24-karat gold leaf, reportedly costing more than $1,000.
The average person in Vietnam earns a few dollars a day.
Months later, Vietnam arrested a noodle seller who posted a parody video that went viral in which he posed as Salt Bae by sprinkling herbs into his noodle soup, calling himself “Green Onion Bae.”
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