The anti-corruption storm is shocking! The wind is blowing in this neighboring country
On March 21, the Standing Committee of the National Assembly of Vietnam announced that Vice President Vo Thi Anh Xuan was appointed acting president.
According to the Vietnam News Agency, the Standing Committee of the National Assembly of Vietnam informed that in accordance with the Constitution of Vietnam, the Organic Law of the National Assembly and the proposal of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Vietnam on the selection of the acting president of the country, Vo Thi Anh Xuan will serve as the acting president of the country until the new president is elected by the National Assembly.
Born in An Giang province in southern Vietnam, 53-year-old Vu Thi Anh Xuan began his career in September 1992 and joined the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV) in his early years as a teacher at My Tai High School in Long Chuan City, An Giang province.
In 1996, Vu Thi Anh Xuan entered the political arena and successively served as a comprehensive researcher of the General Office of the An Giang Provincial Committee of the Communist Party of Vietnam, vice chairman and chairman of the An Giang Provincial Women's Federation, deputy director of the Democratic Movement Department of the An Giang Provincial Committee of the Communist Party of Vietnam, member of the Standing Committee of the Provincial Party Committee, secretary of the Party Committee of Tan Chau City, vice chairman of the Provincial People's Committee, and deputy secretary of the Provincial Party Committee.
In 2015, he succeeded Phan Van Liu, who had been transferred to the post of Deputy Minister of Economic Affairs of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Vietnam, and was promoted to Secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam An Giang Provincial Party Committee. He was elected a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Vietnam at the first plenary session of the 12th Central Committee of the Communist Party of Vietnam the following year.
In 2011, Vo Thi Anh Xuan was elected as an alternate member of the 11th Central Committee of the Communist Party of Vietnam and a member of the 12th and 13th Central Committee of the Communist Party of Vietnam. In 2021, Wu Yingchun became the vice president of the country.
In January last year, former Vietnamese President Nguyen Xuan Phuc announced his resignation to show responsibility after a number of officials were exposed for irregularities and misconduct during the pandemic.
From January 18 to March 2 last year, Vo Thi Anh Xuan briefly served as the acting president of Vietnam.
In March last year, Vo Van Thuong was nominated by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV) and voted in the National Assembly to become the new president.
However, according to outside analysis, Vu Thi Anh Xuan is not a member of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Vietnam, and the possibility of being elected president is not high, but if the various factions within the party cannot reach a consensus, she may become a compromise candidate.
This time, Vo Thi Anh Xuan was once again appointed as the acting president of Vietnam, which shows that Nguyen Phu Trong, general secretary of the CPV Central Committee, secretary of the Central Military Commission, and chairman of the National Defense and Security Committee, has an extraordinary trust in her.
In recent years, there have been significant changes in Vietnam's national leadership, all of which are related to anti-corruption actions.
On March 20, the 13th Central Committee of the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV) held a meeting and agreed to Vo Van Thuong's resignation as a member of the Politburo of the CPV Central Committee and the presidency.
On March 21, the 15th National Assembly of Viet Nam held its sixth extraordinary session and passed a resolution on the dismissal of Vo Van Thuong from the presidency and the termination of his qualification as a deputy to the 15th National Assembly.
Vo Van Thuong became the shortest-serving president of Vietnam in history. According to the Vietnam News Agency, Vo Van Thanh's resignation is known to be related to Vietnam's recent crackdown on corruption.
According to the report of the Central Inspection Commission and functional bodies of the Communist Party of Vietnam, Vo Van Thuong violated the regulations on exemplary responsibility as a cadre and party member, and was required to assume exemplary responsibility as a member of the Political Bureau of the Party Central Committee, a member of the Secretariat, and a member of the Central Committee in accordance with party regulations and national laws.
Vo Van Thanh is the second Vietnamese president to resign in more than a year as a result of an anti-corruption campaign, and the country's political situation is likely to be volatile again.
Vu Van Thanh, 53, voluntarily resigned after the Vietnamese police announced the arrest of Gao Ke, former deputy secretary of the provincial party committee and chairman of the provincial people's committee in Quang Ngai province in central China.
It is understood that Gao Ke was arrested for corruption, and the corruption incident occurred from 2011 to 2014, when Wu Wenxian was the secretary of the Guangyi Provincial Party Committee.
Wu Wenxian's original term of office was until 2026. He is said to have a close relationship with Nguyen Phu Trong and is seen as Nguyen Phu Trong's successor.
In the past few years, Vo Van Thuong was Nguyen Phu Trong's deputy anti-corruption officer. Because Vo Van Thanh has not been involved in any corruption scandals, he is considered the leader with the moral authority that the Viet Cong needs to continue its fight against corruption.
The General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Vietnam, the President of the People's Republic of China, the Prime Minister and the President of the National Assembly are known as the "Troika" of Vietnamese politics. In the Vietnamese party and government structure, the president is second only to the general secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Vietnam.
While the Vietnamese authorities' anti-corruption campaign aims to eradicate corruption and boost investor confidence, there are concerns that repeated changes and reshuffles in senior leadership could undermine investor confidence.
Previously, the "Vietnam Rescue Charter Flight Bribery Case" led to the sentencing of a number of high-ranking officials involved in the case.
In response to the pandemic, Vietnam suspended all international scheduled flights from late March 2020 until January last year.
The Vietnamese government has arranged about 2,000 overseas rescue charter flights to transport stranded Vietnamese citizens back to their home countries, but many have to buy expensive tickets and go through red tape to get on the flights.
During that time, 21 officials and civil servants, including Vietnam's former Deputy Foreign Minister Do Dung, received nearly $7 million in bribes to help them resolve administrative procedures for rescue charters.
Du Anh was sentenced to 16 years in prison for accepting 21.5 billion dong in bribes, while former Vietnamese ambassador to Japan Vu Hong Nam was sentenced to 30 months in prison and former ambassador to Malaysia Tran Viet Cai was sentenced to four years in prison.
Pham Trung Kien, a former deputy secretary to the Ministry of Health, who was accused of taking bribes 253 times in 11 months, was sentenced to life in prison. He received bribes totaling $1.8 million, and prosecutors had asked for him to be sentenced to death.
This is the largest corruption scandal in Vietnam's history and one of the major achievements of the Vietnamese government's anti-corruption campaign.
Earlier, the Vietnamese government website issued a statement saying that the Central Inspection Commission of the Communist Party of Vietnam found some "serious irregularities" after investigating the Ministry of Industry and Trade, and recommended that officials who made mistakes be disciplined, including former Deputy Prime Minister Trung Dinh Dung, Politburo member and former Minister of Industry and Trade Tran Jun Anh, Deputy Minister of Industry and Trade Du Shenghai, and Hoang Quoc Vong, Secretary of the Party Committee and Chairman of the Vietnam National Oil and Gas Corporation, among others.
According to the statement, these "violations" are related to the planning and regulatory development mechanism of solar and wind power policies, causing serious consequences that are difficult to resolve, and causing huge financial and asset losses to the state.
Vietnamese authorities discovered that Du Shenghai was involved in corruption while investigating the wrongdoing of an oil trading company in southern Vietnam.
The Vietnamese government has stepped up its anti-corruption efforts since 2021, investigating more than 1,300 corruption cases, prosecuting more than 3,500 people and forcing many senior officials, including Nguyen Xuan Phuc and two former deputy prime ministers, Pham Binh Minh and Vo Duc Dinh, to step down.
