Vietnam: the resignation of a second president in one year weakens the country

This is the second time in just over a year that a president has hastily left power in Vietnam, a country with a usually stable political regime. Parliament on Thursday approved the resignation of Vo Van Thuong, who reportedly left power over “violations and breaches” of Party rules according to state media. His “shortcomings had a negative impact on public opinion, affecting the reputation of the party, the state and himself,” the government added. If the nature of these faults has not been specified, this rhetoric is often used to designate corruption.

Vo Van Thuong began his term as president of Vietnam barely a year ago, in March 2023, after the sudden departure of Nguyen Xuan Phuc, then targeted by the same accusations. These events occur in the context of a vast anti-corruption campaign launched in 2016. Since then, many members of the political and economic elites have fallen. Earlier this month, several senior officials in Quang Ngai province were arrested on corruption charges, and two fraud trials involving wealthy business leaders began.

But in a country where human rights activists are regularly imprisoned, voices are being raised in civil society to ask whether the anti-corruption campaign is not in reality serving to carry out political purges and further lock down freedoms in the country. The Vietnamese political system is based on “four pillars”: the general secretary of the Communist Party, the president, the speaker of Parliament and the prime minister. The role of the head of state is mainly ceremonial, and the real strongman of the regime is the leader of the Party, Nguyen Phu Trong. He spearheaded the anti-corruption campaign, which he began by vowing that he would get rid of the “bad roots” of the Party.

But Trong is now 79 years old and in fragile health. At 53, President Thuong was one of the youngest executives in the Vietnamese state apparatus, and was considered one of the potential successors to the Party leader, who had recommended him for the post. For Benoît de Tréglodé, director of the Asia domain at the Institute of Strategic Research of the Military School (IRSEM), intraparty dynamics are probably the reason for Vo Van Thuong's departure. Now politically disavowed, his position has been taken over by Vice President Vo Thi Anh Xuan, who serves as interim president until Parliament chooses a new head of state.

These successive resignations risk damaging the country's economy. Vietnam has had one of the fastest growths in Asia and relies mainly on foreign investors. The country had managed to take advantage of the rivalries between China and the United States, playing a balancing act between the two superpowers. President Thuong met with both Joe Biden and Xi Jinping during his short term. Vietnam has also benefited from significant Covid-related restrictions in China, with international manufacturers opting for Vietnam as an alternative. Large companies like Adidas and Nike have turned to this country to manufacture their products.

With a Communist Party that has governed alone for almost fifty years, it is political stability that mainly attracted investors, but the new resignation weakens this argument. “The mere fact that two presidents have resigned in less than two years is not a positive sign for a country often praised for its political stability,” Nguyen Khac Giang, a visiting Vietnamese scholar at the ISEAS Institute, observes in the New York Times -Yusof Ishak from Singapore. Following the first rumors about the future departure of Vo Van Thuong, the Ho Chi Minh stock market, the main one in the country, fell by 3% on Monday.