Vietnam’s President Vo Van Thuong Suddenly Removed from Office

Vietnamese President Vo Van Thuong was abruptly removed from office on Thursday for allegedly violating the rules of the Communist Party.

The national legislature appointed Vice President Vo Thi Anh Xuan, one of the few high-ranking female Vietnamese officials, to take his place as acting head of state.

Xuan was a logical choice for acting president because she already held that position in 2023 when Thuong’s predecessor, Nguyen Xuan Phuc, stepped down. Xuan held the post for about six weeks before Thuong took over, and she now holds it again until a permanent replacement for Thuong is installed. Xuan was a high school chemistry teacher and union leader before becoming vice president in 2021.

Both Thuong and Phuc were evidently ruined by a massive anti-corruption campaign overseen by the real power in Vietnamese politics, Communist Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong. Thuong, a 53-year-old protege of the 79-year-old party leader, became president after Phuc’s subordinates ousted him for “violations and wrongdoing.”

Trong launched an anti-bribery purge dubbed the “Blazing Furnace” in 2016, targeting officials and private businesses he deemed corrupt. 

Trong said a vigorous purge was necessary to restore public confidence in “the Party, the State, and the whole political system.” About 200,000 members of the Vietnamese Communist Party have been fired, kicked out of the Party, or arrested over the past eight years.

The Vietnamese stock market lost $40 billion in value overnight in April 2022 after Trong ordered a string of brokers, business executives, and billionaires arrested on corruption charges. The fallout from the Blazing Furnace killed the momentum of Vietnam’s impressive post-pandemic market recovery, as foreign investors grew nervous about doing business in the shadow of Trong’s mercurial regime.

Phuc’s stunning downfall in March 2023, prompted by his allegedly corrupt ties to a purveyor of Wuhan coronavirus test kits, was seen as the greatest upheaval in the history of Vietnamese politics to date. Vietnam has long struggled to present itself as a safe investment environment where dramatic upheaval is rare.

As bemused Vietnamese subjects pointed out, their authoritarian government usually keeps them in the dark about high-level scandals, so Phuc’s sudden and highly public destruction was like nothing they had ever seen. Phuc only held the presidency for two years, and his term seemed successful. Foreign investors trusted him, which brought a huge infusion of overseas capital into the Vietnamese economy. Some observers thought Phuc was sacked because Trong wanted to reassert power and Communist Party control.

The Vietnamese government has been vague about why Thuong was pushed out of office, but the Associated Press (AP) speculated on Friday that Thuong might have been linked to a corruption case against several top officials in Quang Ngai province. The officials were accused of taking bribes and abusing their authority for personal gain. Thuong was the party chief of Quang Ngai a decade ago, and he still has influential relatives there.

Deutsche Welle (DW) cited growing unease about Vietnam’s system becoming unstable. In addition to presidents Truong and Phuc, two deputy prime ministers and a Politburo member have resigned in the past eighteen months, reducing the Politburo to only 14 seats, the smallest membership in its history.

Communist regimes often use their endless “anti-corruption” crusades for political purges, and Vietnam could be no exception. Age and failing health could lead Trong to resign as general secretary at the next National Congress in 2026, which could turn into a massive scramble for power. 

The largely ceremonial presidency could be a stepping stone to real power for several of the plausible candidates — especially Minister of Public Security To Lam, who manages the Blazing Furnace anti-corruption drive, and might well have tossed both Phuc and Truong into that blazing furnace to clear his pathway to become Trong’s successor.