EPA
NOS News•
Vietnamese President Nguyen Xuan Phuc has resigned because he allegedly did too little against misconduct by ministers during his time as prime minister. Phuc has been president of the communist country since 2021, before that he was prime minister for five years.
The Communist Party of Vietnam is doing a major clean-up. Last year, 539 party members were prosecuted or punished for corruption or other misconduct. Among them were ministers, senior officials and diplomats. Just this month, two deputy prime ministers resigned.
Many of those cases date back to the years when Phuc was prime minister. Although the 68-year-old president is not known to be personally accused of corruption, he is held responsible for the behavior of his subordinates at the time. They were embroiled in scandals involving corona tests and repatriation flights, among other things.
According to an official statement, Phuc himself submitted his resignation, and the Communist Party accepted his resignation. Phuc was also praised in the statement for his services rendered, including in the fight against corona.
The big clean-up in the Communist Party is led by General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong (78), who himself was president from 2018 to 2021. Phuc was often mentioned as a possible successor to Trong as Secretary General.
