General Luong Cuong is the new president of Vietnam. Already a member of the Politburo of the Communist Party Central Committee, at the age of 67, he was elected by 440 deputies out of 440 present at the session of the National Assembly.
Cuong will be in power until 2026 and will replace Ta Lam, who only got elected in May 2024 but was then elected Communist Party general secretary in August following the death of Nguyen Phu Trong.
Upon taking office, the new president stressed that he intends to strengthen defense and develop a foreign policy based on independence and multilateralism. In any case, despite holding one of the most important positions in Vietnam, the president has an essentially ceremonial role. The greatest power is in the hands of the secretary of the Communist Party.
Before Lam’s election in May 2024, there were problems within the Vietnamese leadership due to corruption scandals that led to the resignation of two presidents, Nguyen Xuan Phuc and Vo Van Thuong, as well as the speaker of parliament in a year and a half.