ASEAN Beat | Politics | Southeast Asia

Vietnam Communist Party Chief To Lam Appointed as State President

The decision marks a break with the collective decision-making model that has prevailed for most of the country’s recent history.

The National Assembly building in Ba Dinh Square, Hanoi, Vietnam.

Vietnam’s National Assembly today unanimously elected To Lam, the head of the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV), to serve as the country’s state president for the next five ‌years.

During a session today, Vietnamese state media reported, all 495 delegates present chose to confirm the 68-year-old to the post, endorsing a nomination that was reportedly finalized at a meeting in late March.

The decision, which has been widely anticipated since Lam’s reappointment as party chief at the CPV’s 14th National Congress in January, marks a break with the previous system of collective leadership in which Vietnam’s “four pillars” – its four main leadership roles – were held by different officials. It also frames Lam’s status as the most powerful Vietnamese leader in many years.

Lam previously held both positions simultaneously for a few months after the death of Nguyen Phu Trong, his predecessor as party chief, in July 2024.

After the ⁠vote, Lam gave a televised address to the National Assembly in which he said that it was an honor to hold both posts and pledged “a new growth model with ​science, technology, innovation, and digital transformation as the primary driving forces,” Reuters reported. He also said he would “prioritize self-reliance in defense,” the news agency added.

To a certain extent, today’s vote formalizes a system that has already existed in practice since Lam took over the leadership of the CPV in August 2024. Despite handing the state presidency to Luong Cuong, a general in the People’s Army of Vietnam, Lam has acted as a de facto head of state, traveling abroad frequently and leading a historic expansion of the circle of Hanoi’s “strategic” and “comprehensive strategic” partners.

The appointment of Lam to the presidency and the leadership of the party aligns Vietnam with fellow communist nations, including China, where Xi Jinping serves as both head of the party and the head of state, and........

© The Diplomat