Vietnamese leader Nguyen Phu Trong dies at 80
The announcement came days after the government said he was stepping back to focus on his health and had handed duties to President To Lam.
As the general secretary of Vietnam’s ruling Communist Party since 2011, and at one point also double-hatting as president, Mr Trong was seen as one of the country’s most powerful leaders in decades.
Besides overseeing the supercharged growth of Vietnam’s economy, the 80-year-old was known for his “blazing furnaces” anti-corruption campaign.
Mr Trong’s death comes at a time of political turbulence for Vietnam’s Communist leadership. In recent months three top leaders quit following unspecified accusations of wrongdoing.
According to an official statement released on Friday, Mr Trong died "due to old age and serious illness".
It comes a day after the Vietnamese government said in a surprise announcement that Mr Trong needed time to “focus on active treatment” for an unspecified medical condition. It added that the president would take over Mr Trong’s duties in running the party’s central committee, politburo and secretariat.
On that same day, the government also awarded Mr Trong the Gold Star, the highest honour given in Vietnam, for contributions to the party and country.
Mr Trong was seen as recently as late June, when he welcomed Russian President Vladimir Putin on a state visit.
But after that he failed to attend several events, including the official launch of a book compiling some of his speeches.
In recent years, there were several instances where he would disappear from the public eye for long stretches of time. In 2019, he was reported to have had a stroke.
Little would be said about these absences by the state, though Mr Trong occasionally acknowledged he had health and ageing issues. Observers say the state’s discretion over the health of party leaders and government officials is one way of portraying Vietnam as a stable nation under single-party rule.
In 2018, the country passed a law classifying top officials’ health as a state secret, prompting the already tightly-controlled local media to be even more cautious. Intense speculation over his health has long thrived on social media.
Observers say he leaves behind a deep but incomplete legacy. After rising to power in 2011 he stayed on as general secretary for a rare three terms. During this period he also acted as president from 2018 to 2021.
He saw the need to open up Vietnam’s economy - under his watch, the country’s GDP per capita more than doubled and Vietnam inked a series of free trade agreements with the West and Asian neighbours. Mr Trong was seen as more keen to engage the world than his predecessors, building relationships with US leaders as well as Mr Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping. BBC
