Nguyen Xuan Phuc “tendered his resignation from the posts he held, left his job and retired,” the state news agency VNA reported.
Phuc, 69, becomes the first president to leave office before the end of his term, which began just two years ago, following serving for five years as prime minister with great popularity for his management of the first year of the pandemic of covid-19 in Vietnam.
Such a sudden resignation is unusual in Vietnam, where the communist regime often carefully prepares political changes, aiming to give an appearance of stability.
According to the VNA agency, Phuc “assumed his political responsibilities as a leader following several high-ranking officials, including two deputy prime ministers and three ministers, committed violations and offenses that had serious consequences,” as part of an anti-corruption offensive that also led to the arrest of dozens of high officials.
bribery scandal
The newspaper Your Three It specifies that Phuc submitted his resignation upon assuming responsibility for the involvement of senior officials in his cabinet in a bribery scandal on repatriation flights during the pandemic.
The resignation, which according to most analysts is a covert dismissal, came following days of strong rumors regarding his departure from office, following some of his closest collaborators left the Government and the leading bodies of the Party: the former deputy prime ministers Pham Minh Binh and Vu Duc Dam.
Analyst Le Hong Hiep, from the Yusof Ishak Institute, noted in an article in the publication Fulcrum that there were rumors on social networks that Phuc’s wife was implicated in this scandal, for which some 40 government officials, diplomats and businessmen have been prosecuted.
Repatriation flights in covid pandemic
Since Vietnam closed its borders in March 2020 until its reopening two years later, only national or foreign workers recognized by the authorities as skilled labor or Vietnamese who took advantage of the more than 800 flights of repatriation organized by the authorities.
The difficulty in obtaining a seat on these flights prevented thousands of citizens from returning to their country for months and caused the appearance of corruption like the one that has ended up causing the president’s departure.
After Phuc’s resignation, the position of president of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam will fall, at least temporarily, to the hitherto vice president, Vo Thi Anh Xuan, who must be ratified on Wednesday by the National Assembly.
Nguyen Xuan Phuc has been the president of Vietnam since 2021. Before that, he had been prime minister, since 2016.
rml (afp, efe)