BANGKOK (AP) — Vietnam’s top security official, To Lam, was confirmed Wednesday as the country’s new president. He oversaw police and intelligence operations during a period when rights groups say fundamental freedoms have been systematically suppressed and the secret service has been accused of violating international law.
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 resulted in multiple changes at the highest levels in the 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 general secretary of the Communist Party, the most important political position in the country, Nguyen Khac said Giang. , an analyst at the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute in Singapore.
Communist Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong was elected to a third term in 2021, but at the age of 80 he is barred from seeking another term after 2026.
Trong is an ideologue who sees corruption as the biggest threat facing the party. As Vietnam’s top security official, Lam has led Trong’s sweeping anti-graft campaign.
Lam worked in the Ministry of Public Security for more than 40 years before becoming minister in 2016. His rise came as Vietnam’s politburo lost six of its eighteen members amid the spreading anti-transposition campaign, including two former presidents and Vietnam’s parliamentary head.
Lam was behind many of the investigations into high-profile politicians, Giang said.
Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh is seen as the other top contender to possibly succeed Trong, Giang said.
The current vice-chairman of Vietnam’s parliament was confirmed as speaker of the National Assembly on Monday 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 to companies looking to shift their supply chains away from China.
A flood of foreign investment, especially in the production of high-tech products such as smartphones and computers, raised expectations that the country could join the ‘Four Asian Tigers’ – Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan, whose economies are underwent rapid industrialization and experienced high growth. prices.
But the scandals and uncertainty – including the death sentence for a real estate magnate accused of embezzling nearly 3% of the country’s GDP by 2022 – have brought uncertainty and bureaucratic reluctance to decision-making. Economic growth fell from 8% in 2022 to 5.1% last year as exports slowed.
During Lam’s years leading the Ministry of Public Security, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and other watchdog organizations strongly criticized Vietnam for its harassment and intimidation of critics.
In 2021, courts convicted at least 32 people for posting opinions critical of the government and sentenced them to several years in prison, while police arrested at least 26 others on trumped-up charges, according to Human Rights Watch.
Under Tam’s watch as Vietnam’s top security boss, civil society faced further budget cuts, 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. group that advocates for freedom of expression in Vietnam.
“With To Lam’s ascension to the presidency, Vietnam is now literally a police state,” Swanton said, adding that Vietnam’s ruling Politburo was now dominated by current and former security officials. He said he expected a further intensification of repression and censorship.
While Vietnam was under a COVID-19 lockdown in 2021, a video surfaced of Turkish chef Nusret Gokce, popularly known as Salt Bae, feeding Tam a gold-encrusted steak in London. Despite efforts to censor the video, the video went viral, sparking widespread anger among people facing virus lockdowns that exacerbated economic hardship.
Meanwhile, a Vietnamese noodle seller 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 Lam’s tenure as Public Security Minister when German authorities said in 2017 that Vietnamese businessman and former politician Trinh Xuan Thanh and a companion were kidnapped and dragged into a van in central Berlin, in what officials there “an unprecedented and egregious situation”. violation of German and international law.”
Vietnam has maintained that Thanh surrendered to Vietnamese authorities after evading an international arrest warrant for almost a year. Germany said he and his companion had been kidnapped and responded by summoning the Vietnamese ambassador for talks and expelling his intelligence attaché.
Thanh was sentenced to life imprisonment in 2018 after standing trial in Vietnam.
Announcing espionage-related charges in 2022 against a man accused of being part of Thanh’s kidnapping, Germany’s federal prosecutor’s office said the kidnapping was a “Vietnamese secret service operation” carried out by Vietnamese agents and members from the embassy in Berlin. such as several Vietnamese nationals living in Europe.
The suspect, identified only as Ahn TL in accordance with German privacy laws, was convicted in 2023 of complicity in a kidnapping as a foreign agent and sentenced to five years in prison.
“The relationship between Germany and Vietnam is still shaken by this crime to this day,” the German court said at the time.
Another suspect, identified as Long NH, was convicted by a Berlin court in 2018 on espionage-related charges and sentenced to almost four years in prison.
