Trong’s responsibilities have been handed to the country’s largely ceremonial president, To Lam, a powerful former public security minister long seen as jockeying for the top job.
“The Politburo calls on the entire party, people and army to have absolute trust in the party’s leadership and state management,” it said Thursday.
The country’s communist regime, which is in the midst of a complete overhaul, has undergone a series of upheavals in recent months, with ministers, business leaders and two presidents all falling from grace as part of a vast anti-corruption campaign.
Lam was voted in as president in May by Vietnam’s rubber-stamp parliament after his predecessor was forced to resign as part of the anti-graft drive.
I’ve been hearing good things about Vietnam’s investment future. Hope this doesn’t shake things up too much!
I get the impression that Vietnam’s economic future is “locked in” at this point and is not dependent on any one person. They really are doing very well, considering the Americans had bombed them into the stone age a scant 60 years ago.
Oh I agree. Their junta drives the bus like a Taiwanese extended family vacation. Scouring the decks of obviously corrupt people and painting the fences white is step one, I suppose.
The playing field is quite obviously tilted in favour of, well, the favoured. But at least the average person is doing reasonably well, and as you said they’ve done a good job of stamping out corruption and skulduggery - not, I imagine, out of any philosophical objection but simply because it was bad for business. There are far too many countries led by people who just aren’t smart enough to understand that you can skim off a whole lot more money if everyone is making some serious profits.
The whole setup looks a lot like a re-run of Taiwan’s “economic miracle” 30-odd years ago. Might be the time for some judicious investments - I believe foreigners are allowed to do so, in limited ways.