Vietnam’s parliament will elect a new state president in October, according to the State media on Tuesday.
Vietnam, a one-party communist state has been a unified country since 1975, with a record as one of south-east Asia’s fastest-growing economies.
The presidency is one of the key roles in Vietnam’s four-pillar leadership structure, which also includes the Communist Party general secretary the top position the prime minister, and the head of the National Assembly.
The current state president To Lam was appointed earlier in August as chief of the ruling Communist Party, the country’s most powerful job, two weeks after the death of long-serving general secretary Nguyen Phu Trong.
Trong held both positions at the same time between October 2018 and April 2021.
For decades, political changes in one-party Vietnam were carefully orchestrated with an emphasis on cautious stability.
But a major anti-corruption purge dubbed the “blazing furnace” swept up numerous politicians and officials in recent years, including some of the country’s top leaders, throwing Vietnam into unfamiliar political upheaval.
Since 2021, two presidents Nguyen Xuan Phuc and his successor Vo Van Thuong resigned as part of the anti-graft campaign, while three deputy prime ministers were also caught up.
