HANOI - Vietnam's National Assembly on Wednesday elected public security minister To Lam as the country's new president.
The election followed Vo Van Thuong's resignation in March after serving just over a year in office, amid an anti-corruption drive. Vietnam's president is the second highest position in the country after the general secretary of the ruling Communist Party.
Lam has reportedly been a close aide to General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong and made a significant contribution to the sweeping anti-corruption campaign.
The election of the career public security bureaucrat came after Vietnam's politburo lost six members in the past one and a half years as the country strives to root out corruption. Since March, the shakeup has seen the exit of three of Vietnam's top five leaders, after the house speaker, the president and a top politburo member resigned due to unspecified "wrongdoings".
Lam has been in the job since 2016 and was admitted to the party's politburo, the most powerful decision-making body in Vietnam, in 2021.
He has been a key figure in an anti-graft crackdown, known as "blazing furnace", which is aimed at rooting out widespread corruption but has been seen also by critics as a tool to sideline opponents during political infighting.