Good evening! Welcome to a brief emergency edition of the Vietnam Weekly, written by Ho Chi Minh City-based reporter Mike Tatarski.
I’ll publish a longer look at this for paying subscribers tomorrow - you can become a supporter of the newsletter for US$8/month or US$90/year below.
On to the news.
Thưởng is Out
In a development that surprised nobody who is well-informed on Vietnamese politics, the Central Executive Committee just announced that it has accepted President Võ Văn Thưởng’s resignation “according to personal wishes.”
Thưởng had been in office for less than a year following the sudden resignation of his predecessor, Nguyễn Xuân Phúc, in January 2023. (Thưởng officially assumed the role on April 23, 2023.)
This move has been widely speculated for almost a week and is what I vaguely referenced in this week’s Vietnam Weekly Podcast episode on the anti-corruption campaign.
The rumor mill went into hyperdrive last Thursday night when the Royal House of the Netherlands abruptly announced that a planned state visit by the Dutch King and Queen scheduled to begin yesterday was postponed by the Vietnamese side “due to internal circumstances.”
Vietnam is usually good about preventing domestic infighting from interfering with foreign affairs, so this was a shock.
“This is rather unusual as Vietnam often wants to play down any rumors about its own political issues and keep its house tidy in front of foreign partners' eyes,” Nguyen Khac Giang, a Visiting Fellow at the Vietnam Studies Programme under the ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute and this week’s podcast guest, said in an email. “This incident underscores the swift and dramatic nature of Thưởng's fall.”
Thưởng, 54, was the youngest president in modern Vietnam’s history and seen as a prime candidate for future advancement.
State media cited a government announcement saying that "Võ Văn Thưởng's violations and flaws have negatively affected public perception, as well as the reputation of the Party and the state. Being aware of his responsibilities before the Party, the state and the people, Thưởng has sent in his resignation from his positions."
He will also step down as a member of the Politburo, member of the 13th Party Central Committee, and president of the defense and security council for the 2021-2026 term.
It’s not clear when this resignation goes into effect, and such vague language is standard. I’ll get further into why this might have happened tomorrow.
One of the bigger takeaways is that Vietnam has gone through two presidents in as many years.
I asked Giang about this: “Whatever the reasons, two presidents' resignation in less than two years is not a good sign for a country often boasting political stability.”
The National Assembly is expected to convene tomorrow (Thursday) to select the next president, and there is plenty of speculation about who that may be.
More to come.
It's like China. There are no clean hands. It's only less dirty hands.