The Vietnamese Communist Party has accepted the resignation of President Vo Van Thuong, the government said on Wednesday (Mar 20), in a sign of political turmoil that could hurt foreign investors’ confidence in the country.
The government said in a statement Thuong violated party rules, adding that those “shortcomings had negatively impacted public opinion, affecting the reputation of the party, state and him personally”.
The Central Party Committee, a top decision-making body in Communist Party-ruled Vietnam, approved Thuong’s resignation just about a year after his election.
The president holds a largely ceremonial role but is one of the top four political positions in the Southeast Asian nation.
Calls to the presidential office on Wedensday went unanswered.
The committee’s meeting preceded an extraordinary session of Vietnam’s parliament scheduled on Thursday when deputies are expected to confirm the party’s decisions
Foreign investors and diplomats have repeatedly blamed the campaign for slowing down decisions in a country which is already grappling with cumbersome bureaucracy.
Thuong, 53, quit days after Vietnamese police announced the arrest for alleged corruption a decade ago of a former head of central Vietnam’s Quang Ngai province, who served while Thuong was party chief there.
He had also been a senior party official of economic hub Ho Chi Minh City, which has been rocked by a multi-billion-dollar long-running financial scam, for which a large trial is currently underway.
Thuong was widely regarded as being close to ageing General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong, Vietnam’s most powerful figure and the main architect of the anti-graft campaign.
Last year, when former president Nguyen Xuan Phuc quit after the party blamed him for “violations and wrongdoing” by officials under his control, it took one month and a half for lawmakers to appoint Thuong as his successor.
Reuters
