Vietnam’s top security official To Lam was confirmed as the nation’s new president. He oversaw police and intelligence operations over a period when rights groups say basic liberties have been systematically suppressed, and its secret service was accused of violating international law.

Mr. Lam was confirmed by Vietnam’s National Assembly after his predecessor resigned amid an ongoing anti-corruption campaign that has shaken the country’s political establishment and business elites and has resulted in multiple top-level changes in government.

Vietnam’s presidency is largely ceremonial, but his new role as head of state puts the 66-year-old in a “very strong position” to become the next Communist Party general secretary, the most important political position in the country, said Nguyen Khac Giang, an analyst at Singapore’s ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute.

Communist Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong was elected to a third term in 2021, but at age 80, he may not seek another term after 2026.

Mr. Trong is an an ideologue who views corruption as the gravest threat facing the party. As Vietnam’s top security official, Mr. Lam has led Mr. Trong’s sweeping anti-graft campaign.

Following Mr. Lam’s confirmation as president, Deputy Public Security Minister Tran Quoc To was appointed to take over from him at the ministry in an interim role.

Mr. Lam spent more than four decades in the Ministry of Public Security before becoming the minister in 2016. His rise took place while Vietnam’s politburo lost of six of its 18 members amid the expanding anti-graft campaign, including two former presidents and Vietnam’s parliamentary head.

Mr. Lam was behind many of the investigations into high-profile politicians, said Mr. Giang.

Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh is seen as the other major contender to possibly succeed Mr. Trong, Mr. Giang said.

The current vice-speaker of Vietnam’s parliament was confirmed Monday as the National Assembly speaker after his predecessor, Vuong Dinh Hue, resigned amid the anti-graft campaign. Until his resignation, Hue was also widely seen as a potential successor to Trong.

This unprecedented instability in Vietnam’s political system has spooked investors as the country tries to position itself as an alternative for companies looking to shift their supply chains away from China.

A flood of foreign investment, especially in manufacturing of high-tech products like smartphones and computers, raised expectations it could join the “Four Asian Tigers” — Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan, whose economies underwent rapid industrialisation and posted high growth rates.

But the scandals and uncertainty — including the death sentence for a real estate tycoon accused of embezzling nearly 3% of the country’s 2022 GDP — have brought with them uncertainty and bureaucratic reticence to make decisions. Economic growth slipped to 5.1% last year from 8% in 2022 as exports slowed.

During Mr. Lam’s years heading the Public Security Ministry, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and other watchdog organisations have strongly criticised Vietnam for its harassment and intimidation of critics.

In 2021, courts convicted at least 32 people for posting critical opinions about the government and sentenced them to multiple years in prison, while police arrested at least 26 others on fabricated charges, according to Human Rights Watch.

Under Mr. Lam’s watch as Vietnam’s top security boss, civil society faced further curbs, foreign aid restrictions introduced in 2021 were tightened in 2023, the country jailed climate activists, and laws were introduced to censor social media, said Ben Swanton of The 88 Project, a group that advocates for freedom of expression in Vietnam.

“With To Lam’s ascent to the presidency, Vietnam is now a literal police state,” said Swanton, adding that the Vietnamese ruling Politburo was now dominated by current and former security officials. He said he expected further intensification of repression and censorship.

While Vietnam was under a COVID-19 lockdown in 2021, a video surfaced showing Turkish chef Nusret Gokce, popularly known as Salt Bae, feeding Mr. Lam a gold-encrusted steak in London. Despite efforts to censor it, the video went viral, stoking widespread anger from people enduring virus lockdowns that exacerbated economic deprivations.

Meantime, a Vietnamese noodle vendor named Bui Tuan Lam, who followed the video with a parody of Salt Bae, was arrested on charges of spreading anti-state propaganda and sentenced to five years in prison.

It was also under Mr. Lam’s tenure as public security minister, in 2017, when German authorities say Vietnamese businessperson and former politician Trinh Xuan Thanh and a companion were abducted and dragged into a van in downtown Berlin, in what officials there called “an unprecedented and flagrant violation of German and international law.”

Vietnam has maintained that Mr. Thanh surrendered to Vietnamese authorities after evading an international arrest warrant for nearly a year. Germany said he and his companion were kidnapped, and responded by summoning Vietnam’s ambassador for talks and expelling its intelligence attaché.

Mr. Thanh was sentenced to life imprisonment in 2018 after being put on trial in Vietnam.

Announcing espionage-related charges in 2022 against a man accused of being part of Mr. Thanh’s abduction, the German Federal Prosecutor’s Office said the kidnapping was an “operation of the Vietnamese secret service” carried out by Vietnamese agents and members of its embassy in Berlin as well as several Vietnamese nationals living in Europe.

The suspect, identified only as Ahn T.L. in line with German privacy laws, was convicted in 2023 of aiding and abetting an abduction as a foreign agent and sentenced to five years in prison.

“The relationship between Germany and Vietnam continue to be shaken by this crime to this day,” the German court said at the time.

Another suspect, identified as Long N.H., was convicted in 2018 in a Berlin court of espionage-related charges and sentenced to nearly four years in prison.

Bangkok:

Vietnam’s rubber-stamp parliament voted in public security minister To Lam as the country’s new president on Wednesday, after a major anti-corruption campaign forced his predecessor to resign.

Thousands of people — including several senior government and business leaders  — have been caught up in the Southeast Asian country’s “blazing furnace” crackdown on graft, led by Communist Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong.

Analysts have said that Lam, who is deputy head of the steering committee on anti-corruption, has weaponised its investigations to take down his political rivals.

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

Lam takes over from Vo Van Thuong, who resigned in March over what the party called “violations and shortcomings”, after just a year in the job. 

Led by the Communist Party general secretary, Vietnam has a four-person leadership structure that also includes the president, prime minister and head of the National Assembly.

The National Assembly chairman also resigned in April over “violations and shortcomings”, meaning two of the country’s top four positions had been vacant for a month. 

Lam, 66, has been public security minister since 2016 and has taken a hard line on human rights movements in the communist country.

It had appeared he was set to hold the presidency and his position at the Ministry of Public Security (MPS) concurrently, which would have been a first for Vietnam.

But hours before the secret ballot, parliamentarians agreed they would relieve him of the powerful role.

“The indecision on the MPS post shows that other elite members are hesitant to grant the MPS to any of To Lam’s proteges,” Nguyen Khac Giang, visiting fellow at the ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute, told AFP.

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

The National Assembly elects the president by secret ballot, with deputies then approving the results.

Lam carried 472 of 473 votes.

On Monday, Tran Thanh Man, 61 was nominated as the new head of the National Assembly, and the party has appointed four new politburo members.

Political upheaval is uncommon in Vietnam, and for years all changes were carefully managed with an emphasis on cautious stability.

In the past 18 months, Vietnam also saw the resignations of the deputy prime minister and the head of the party’s economic commission, while its once 18-strong parliament briefly fell to 12 members.

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

Steaks and noodle soup

Lam has spent his whole career within the secretive MPS, which deals with the monitoring of dissent and surveillance of activists in the authoritarian state.

Rights groups say the government has in recent years stepped up a crackdown on civil society groups.

Two hundred activists are currently in prison, according to Vietnam-focused human rights organisation The 88 Project.

Three years ago, he was at the centre of a scandal that sparked online anger in Vietnam when he was filmed eating steak smothered in gold leaf at a London restaurant — shortly after laying a wreath at the grave of Karl Marx.

The restaurant, Nusr-Et Steakhouse, named after Turkish chef Nusret Gokce — known to his nearly 40 million Instagram followers as Salt Bae — serves up steaks wrapped in edible 24-carat gold leaf, reportedly costing more than $1,000.

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

Months later, Vietnam jailed a noodle seller who had posted a parody video that went viral, in which he impersonated Salt Bae by sprinkling herbs on noodle soup, calling himself “Green Onion Bae”.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Chinese President Xi Jinping. File
| Photo Credit: AP

Chinese leader Xi Jinping told Vietnam’s second-highest ranking official on October 20 that both countries must not forget the “original intention” of their traditional friendship.

China and the United States have been jostling for influence among Southeast Asian nations including Vietnam, which in September elevated its ties with Washington to a comprehensive strategic partnership, putting its one-time enemy on a par with Beijing and Moscow.

China has traditionally strong ties with Vietnam since diplomatic relations were established in 1950, despite a brief war in 1979. Beijing has backed Hanoi’s fight against former colonial ruler France, and later, against Saigon and the United States during the Vietnam War.

“Faced with the ever-changing international situation and arduous domestic development tasks, the two countries must not forget the original intention of their traditional friendship,” Xi told visiting Vietnamese President Vo Van Thuong.

Mr. Thuong, Vietnam’s No.2 after its Communist Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong, held talks with Xi after attending Beijing’s Belt and Road Forum.

In early October, Reuters reported that Vietnamese and Chinese officials were preparing for a possible trip by Xi to Hanoi either at the end of October or in early November, citing people familiar with the plans.

“The two sides should adhere to the principle of joint consultation,” Xi told Mr. Thuong, adding that China and Vietnam should capitalise on their geographical proximity and industrial complementarity. There was no mention of any Xi visit in the Chinese state media readout of their meeting.

On Wednesday, Vietnamese state media reported that Russian President Vladimir Putin had accepted an invitation from Mr. Thuong to “soon” visit Vietnam, when the two men met on the sidelines of the Belt and Road Forum. In September, U.S. President Joe Biden visited Hanoi.