Vietnam votes for president and public security minister

Lam will be sworn in as Vietnam’s president on Wednesday – Copyright AFP Dang ANH

Vietnam’s rubber-stamp parliament on Wednesday elected Public Security Minister Tho Lam as the new president after a massive anti-corruption campaign forced his predecessor to resign.

Thousands of people, including several government officials and business leaders, have been caught up in a “furnace” crackdown on transplants in the Southeast Asian country led by Communist Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong.

Analysts say Lam, who is vice-chairman of the Anti-Corruption Steering Committee, is using the committee’s investigations as a weapon to oust political opponents.

In his first address as president, Lam said he was “determined to fight corruption and negative phenomena.”

Lam replaced Bo Van Tuong, who resigned in March over what the party called “violations and deficiencies,” after just one year in office.

Vietnam has a four-member leadership system led by the General Secretary of the Communist Party, including the President, Prime Minister, and Speaker of the National Assembly.

The Speaker of Parliament also resigned in April citing “violations and omissions”, meaning two of the country’s top four posts have been vacant for a month.

Lam, 66, has served as public security minister since 2016 and has taken a tough stance on human rights movements in the communist country.

He was apparently scheduled to hold both the presidential and Ministry of Public Security (MPS) positions, a first for Vietnam.

But hours before the secret vote, lawmakers agreed to remove him from his powerful role.

“The indecision regarding the MPS post shows that other elite members are reluctant to grant MPS to To Lam’s disciples,” said Nguyen, a visiting researcher at ISEAS (Yusof Ishak Institute). Kak Giang told AFP.

“And Lam himself is reluctant to relinquish control over the main enforcers of the anti-corruption movement,” he said.

The National Assembly elects the president by secret ballot, and members approve the results.

Lam won 472 out of 473 votes.

On Monday, Tran Thanh Man, 61, was named the new speaker of Parliament and the party appointed four new Politburo members.

Political turmoil is rare in Vietnam, and over the years all changes have been carefully managed with an emphasis on cautious stability.

Over the past 18 months, Vietnam’s vice prime minister and the party’s economic affairs committee chairman have resigned, and the country’s once 18-member National Assembly has at one point been reduced to 12 members.

Former President Vo Van Thuong’s predecessor, Nguyen Xuan Phuc, also resigned during that period.

– Steak and noodle soup –

Hayashi has spent his entire career working for the State Police Bureau, a secret organization charged with monitoring dissent and monitoring activists in the authoritarian state.

Human rights groups allege that the government has increased its crackdown on civil society organizations in recent years.

According to the Vietnam-based human rights organization “88 Project,” 200 activists are currently in prison.

Three years ago he was at the centre of a scandal that sparked online outrage in Vietnam after he was photographed eating a gold-leaf covered steak in a London restaurant shortly after laying flowers at the grave of Karl Marx.

Nusr Et Steakhouse, a restaurant named after Turkish chef Nusret Gökçe (known as Salt Bae to his roughly 40 million Instagram followers), serves steaks wrapped in edible 24-karat gold leaf that reportedly cost more than $1,000.

The average person in Vietnam earns just a few dollars a day.

A few months later, the Vietnamese government jailed a noodle vendor who went viral after posting a parody video in which he pretended to be salt bae by sprinkling herbs on his noodle soup and calling himself “green onion bae.”