Communist Party of Vietnam General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong, nominated by the nation’s political apparatus to replace its deceased president, is poised to become the most influential leader there since founder Ho Chi Minh.
The party’s central committee on Wednesday nominated Trong, 74, to become president following the Sept. 21 death of Tran Dai Quang from illness, a government statement said.
Trong outmaneuvered former Vietnamese prime minister Nguyen Tan Dung to win a second five-year term as the party’s head during its 2016 congress.
Photo: AP
If his nomination is approved, he would directly oversee the nation’s police and military forces, mirroring the role held by Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平).
As the only nominee for president, Trong is expected to be voted in by the National Assembly when it meets later this month.
The nomination breaks with tradition, in which political power rests with four individual leaders — party chief, prime minister, president and head of the National Assembly.
“We are seeing a tipping point in the trajectory of the power struggle in the government,” said Alexander Vuving, a professor at the Daniel K. Inouye Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies in Hawaii.
If made president, Trong “will be able to mobilize not just the party, but also the state apparatus,” he said.
The government’s shifting power centers are not expected to change Vietnam’s push for global economic integration and efforts to strengthen relations with the US, Vuving said.
Trong has welcomed a robust US presence in Southeast Asia amid Vietnam’s territorial tensions with China.
Trong has also spearheaded anti-corruption campaigns targeting officials and is likely to accelerate those efforts after consolidating power, Vuving said, adding that he might also intensify prosecution of his critics in the government.
It was not known if the merging of the party chief and president roles is temporary and will stand only until the next party congress in 2021.
The party’s operations in Vietnam are “very opaque,” Vuving said.
“They want to conceal all the power struggles, jockeying and bargaining behind the scenes,” he said.
Two former Chilean ministers are among four candidates competing this weekend for the presidential nomination of the left ahead of November elections dominated by rising levels of violent crime. More than 15 million voters are eligible to choose today between former minister of labor Jeannette Jara, former minister of the interior Carolina Toha and two members of parliament, Gonzalo Winter and Jaime Mulet, to represent the left against a resurgent right. The primary is open to members of the parties within Chilean President Gabriel Boric’s ruling left-wing coalition and other voters who are not affiliated with specific parties. A recent poll by the
TENSIONS HIGH: For more than half a year, students have organized protests around the country, while the Serbian presaident said they are part of a foreign plot About 140,000 protesters rallied in Belgrade, the largest turnout over the past few months, as student-led demonstrations mount pressure on the populist government to call early elections. The rally was one of the largest in more than half a year student-led actions, which began in November last year after the roof of a train station collapsed in the northern city of Novi Sad, killing 16 people — a tragedy widely blamed on entrenched corruption. On Saturday, a sea of protesters filled Belgrade’s largest square and poured into several surrounding streets. The independent protest monitor Archive of Public Gatherings estimated the
Irish-language rap group Kneecap on Saturday gave an impassioned performance for tens of thousands of fans at the Glastonbury Festival despite criticism by British politicians and a terror charge for one of the trio. Liam Og O hAnnaidh, who performs under the stage name Mo Chara, has been charged under the UK’s Terrorism Act with supporting a proscribed organization for allegedly waving a Hezbollah flag at a concert in London in November last year. The rapper, who was charged under the anglicized version of his name, Liam O’Hanna, is on unconditional bail before a further court hearing in August. “Glastonbury,
The Vatican Museums on Thursday unveiled the last and most important of the restored Raphael Rooms, the spectacularly frescoed reception rooms of the Apostolic Palace that in some ways rival the Sistine Chapel as the peak of high Renaissance artistry. A decade-long project to clean and restore the largest of the four Raphael Rooms uncovered a novel mural painting technique that Renaissance painter and architect Raphael began, but never completed. He used oil paint directly on the wall, and arranged a grid of nails embedded in the walls to hold in place the resin surface onto which he painted. Vatican Museums officials
RSS