Is crackdown rattling the Communist party?

In April, Vuong Dinh Hue, a high-ranking member of Vietnam’s Communist Party, stepped down from his role as National Assembly chairman over unspecified “violations” of party regulations. Without including specifics, the party’s Central Committee cited “shortcomings” in announcing that Hue had resigned from Vietnam’s fourth-highest political office.

According to reports in the state media outlet VN Express, the party’s Central Inspection Committee said the “violations ... affected the reputation” of the party. Hue, a 67-yearold lawmaker and a veteran of Vietnamese politics, had served as assembly chairman since 2021. He also served as Vietnam’s deputy prime minister from 2016 to 2020. His resignation followed the stepping down of other top-level Communist Party officials. In March, President Vo Van Thuong resigned from his position after just over a year in the role, also over unspecified “violations” of party policy. He was the second Vietnamese president to leave the post in two years, after Nguyen Xuan Phuc was forced to resign in January 2023 after being blamed for “wrongdoing” following reports of corruption during the pandemic.

Although Vietnam has a fast-growing economy, and is seen as a blossoming production and trade partner for both the US and China, the country is ruled as an authoritarian one-party state, with the Communists having complete control over the government, social organisations and the media. At the top of the country’s leadership is Nguyen Phu Trong, general secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam. Since 2016, he has mounted a large-scale anti-corruption campaign that has seen thousands of government officials, and business leaders dismissed or imprisoned.

Vietnam’s leadership consists of what are called the “four pillars”: the general secretary of the Communist Party, the president of Vietnam, the prime minister of Vietnam and the chairperson of the National Assembly of Vietnam. For years, unexpected departures within Vietnam’s communist political structure were rare. So the spate of high-level dismissals and resignations has raised eyebrows. Nguyen Khac Giang, a visiting fellow at ISEAS Yusof Ishak Institute, told DW that Vietnam is going through political “turbulence” not seen in decades.

“Vuong Dinh Hue’s resignation indicates that we’re currently experiencing one of the most turbulent periods in postwar Vietnamese politics. Since 1956, none of the ‘four pillars’ have had to step down mid-tenure, yet three have fallen within the past two years,” he said. Zachary Abuza, a political scientist focusing on southeast Asian politics at the National War College in Washington, said Trong started the “blazing furnace anti-corruption campaign” because he “believed that the party’s legitimacy was at stake.”

“In many ways the party has emerged weaker. The churn in leaders is destabilising. The purge of senior officials has weakened the party organisation. But it has also delegitimised the party in the eyes of the people. It’s not just one or two bad apples, it’s all of them,” he added. Abuza said five members of Vietnam’s 18-person Politburo had been forced to resign since December 2022. The Politburo of the Central Standing Committee of the Communist Party is the highest decision-making body of the Communist Party. The body has seen some changes, and includes several members from Vietnam’s Public Security Ministry (MPS).

This article was provided by Deutsche Welle