(Hanoi) Top Vietnamese leader Nguyen Phu Trong died Friday at the age of 80 from illness, after 13 years at the helm of the Communist Party, which he reshaped through a historic anti-corruption campaign.
“Due to his advanced age and illness, he died at 1:38 p.m. (2:38 a.m. Eastern Time) on July 19, 2024” at a military hospital in the capital Hanoi, according to a statement from the Vietnamese Communist Party (CPV), reported in state media.
“There will be a special announcement on the organization of a national funeral for Nguyen Phu Trong,” it said. At the time of the announcement of the death, several Vietnamese news sites displayed a black banner, a prelude to a period of national mourning that is expected to see the cancellation of some festivities.
The day before, the CPV had announced its temporary withdrawal for health reasons and designated the current president of the socialist republic, To Lam, 67, to ensure the interim. The secretary general of the CPV is the most important person in the state, ahead of the prime minister, the president and the president of the National Assembly.
Nguyen Phu Trong is the first general secretary to die in power since Le Duan, a brother-in-arms of the father of independence Ho Chi Minh, in 1986. He is also the first to have served three consecutive terms at the head of the party, after the liberalization of the economy in 1986.
The reactions were not long in coming.
“The Central Committee of the Communist Party of China sent a message of condolences [à son équivalent au Vietnam] “after the death of General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong,” Chinese state broadcaster CCTV said in a brief statement.
“We mourn the loss of a visionary leader who for decades served as a bridge between Vietnam and the United States, as he did with the rest of the international community,” U.S. Ambassador to Vietnam Marc E. Knapper said in a statement.
With his foreign partners, Nguyen Phu Trong has applied the pragmatic principles of his “bamboo diplomacy” that has positioned Hanoi as an interlocutor of both Washington and Beijing, in an effort to maintain autonomy in the face of the two superpowers. He also met with Vladimir Putin in June, during the Russian president’s visit to the Vietnamese capital.
PHOTO GAVRIIL GRIGOROV, ASSOCIATED PRESS ARCHIVES
Russian President Vladimir Putin, left, shakes hands with former Vietnamese President Nguyen Phu Trong during a meeting at the headquarters of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Vietnam in Hanoi, Thursday, June 20, 2024.
“Burning blaze”
In office since 2011, Mr. Nguyen’s remarkable longevity in office has coincided with Vietnam’s authoritarian drift, according to human rights groups. His policies have helped extend the Communist regime’s grip on the country at a time of booming trade but at the expense of basic freedoms.
A technocrat with a reputation for discretion, he was the architect of the XXL campaign that has brought more than 4,400 people to justice in more than 1,700 cases of corruption and fraud since 2021, at a spectacularly high rate for the country, accustomed to quiet negotiations. This operation, considered the largest of its kind that Vietnam has ever known, has strengthened the power around him, according to experts.
He was “a strong man who embodied the party’s obsession with staying in power regardless of internal upheavals and the country’s openness,” said Benoît de Tréglodé, research director at the Institute for Strategic Research at the École Militaire in Paris.
To Lam, the former public security minister, was tipped as the best-placed candidate to succeed Nguyen Phu Trong, whose health had fuelled speculation for some time about his ability to lead until the next congress scheduled for 2026.