- Vietnam’s ruling Communist Party chief Nguyen Phu Trong died on Friday, July 19, 2024, after holding the nation’s most powerful position for 13 years. He was 80 years old.
- The country’s president, To Lam, had taken over Trong’s duties on Thursday. The party will decide whether Lam will continue as acting party general secretary until the current term expires, or whether it will elect a new candidate before then.
- Trong carried significant political influence in his party. He was educated in the Soviet Union and was regarded as a Marxist-Leninist ideologue.
Vietnam’s ruling Communist Party chief Nguyen Phu Trong died on Friday after holding the country’s most powerful position for 13 years. He was 80.
He died in the early afternoon “due to old age and serious illness,” the Communist Party said in a statement on its website, without elaborating further on the nature of the illness.
The statement cited information from Trong’s medical team, saying he died “after a period of illness, despite being wholeheartedly treated by the Party, the State, a collective of professors, doctors, leading medical experts.”
But in recent months, he appeared fragile in public events and missed several top-level meetings.
Trong was educated in the Soviet Union and was regarded as a Marxist-Leninist ideologue. In 2017 he unleashed what many saw as a China-style crackdown on corruption, known as “blazing furnace,” under which hundreds of officials were investigated for graft and many forced to quit, including cabinet ministers, a parliament chairman and two state presidents.
Lam, a former chief of the powerful internal security agency, has been a key player in that campaign and was elected president in May after his predecessor resigned amid accusations of unspecified wrongdoing.
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