Good evening! This is an “emergency” edition of the Vietnam Weekly - I’ll keep it short, but this is too big to save until next week.
On to the news.
No need to beat around the bush: National Assembly Chairman Vương Đình Huệ resigned earlier today (Friday, Vietnam time).
Rumors regarding his potential fate have been swirling for a while, and his downfall appeared almost inevitable earlier this week when his assistant was detained on charges of “abusing position and power for personal gains.”
I covered this in an article for paying subscribers on Tuesday.
Still, there was some possibility that Huệ would hold on. Just this morning, state media reported on a group of top officials visiting Hồ Chí Minh’s mausoleum in Hanoi - a group that included the NA chairman.
Huệ is in the black suit in the middle, to the left of Prime Minister Phạm Minh Chính. Nguyễn Xuân Phúc, who resigned as president in January 2023, is to Chính’s right.
I thought this meant Huệ may be safe for a little longer, but here we are.
Domestic media reported that he resigned at his request while adding that government agencies “said that Huệ has violated Party regulations, and his violations have affected the reputation of the Party, the State and himself.”
This is official speak for putting a leader out to pasture for corruption - at the very least, committed by others under his command - while avoiding the spectacle of an arrest.
So what does this mean?
The obvious headline is that this is the second member of the ‘big four’ leadership group to resign in less than two months, following former President Võ Văn Thưởng’s dismissal in mid-March.
As with that resignation, this means little for immediate policy issues, but it’s a shocking amount of high-level turmoil for a country that prides itself on political stability - and follows the January 2023 resignations of President Phúc and two high-profile deputy prime ministers.
General Secretary Nguyễn Phú Trọng, meanwhile, hasn’t been seen in public for some time.
It also further clouds the 2026 leadership transition, entrenches fear among officials that they could be held accountable for actions long in the past, and potentially solidifies the inertia slowing all kinds of policymaking.
The Politburo now has to decide on both a new president and a new National Assembly chairperson, decisions which will presumably be made in the coming weeks.
It’s safe to say that we are in uncharted territory, at least in recent Vietnamese history, and there is no telling where the anti-corruption campaign/leadership jockeying may go next.
Back next week!
Mike Tatarski
I'm guessing that by resigning so quickly, he also saved his pension and other benefits.