Opinion | Vietnam’s To Lam is ruthlessly cementing control and reshaping the party in his image – Technologist

He moved with the speed and dispatch that had been evident since he began his systematic targeting of rivals on the Politburo in December 2022. In the following 20 months, he orchestrated the resignations of seven of the 18 members who had been elected at the 13th Congress in January 2021.

It was an unprecedented degree of political churn and personal ambition, in a system that prides itself on stability and collective leadership.

Even before his election, Lam was nominally in charge, often appearing in Trong’s absence, as the 80-year-old leader was in failing health.

While the focus has been on the resignations that Lam forced, attention must shift to his consolidation of power, which has been every bit as efficient.

Lam was elected president in April, following the forced resignation of presidents Nguyen Xuan Phuc and Vo Van Thuong.

He tried to concurrently hold onto the presidency and the Ministry of Public Security, but was met with resistance from both the Central Committee and the National Assembly. While Lam’s opponents tried to install Tran Quoc To, the younger brother of former president Tran Dai Quang, Lam was able to secure his own protégé’s rise.

In addition to being his long-serving deputy, Luong Tam Quang has close family ties to Lam. The two men hail from the same province, Hung Yen. During the Vietnam war, which the Vietnamese call “American War”, Quang’s father served as the personal bodyguard to Lam’s father.

On August 16, Lam secured the promotion of Quang to the Politburo. He is a key ally on the elite 15-member body.

But Lam has been seeding allies – mostly former officials from the Ministry of Public Security – in other key positions.

He installed another deputy minister, Nguyen Duy Ngoc, to head the Central Committee Office. The Central Committee appointed him to the party’s Secretariat in a mid-August session.

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Vietnam’s president Vo Van Thuong quits after just one year

Vietnam’s president Vo Van Thuong quits after just one year

At the same meeting, the Central Committee appointed two others to the Secretariat: Senior Lieutenant General Trinh Van Quyet, the head of the army’s General Political Department and a permanent member of the Central Military Commission’s Standing Committee. The second is Le Minh Tri, who heads the Central Committee’s Civil Affairs Committee and is the prosecutor general of the Supreme People’s Procuracy, that is, the government’s top prosecutor.

The Secretariat is in charge of the party’s day-to-day affairs, and the influx of members who hail from the security services reflects the regime’s underlying insecurities about a ‘colour revolution’.

The Politburo recently approved Police Major General Vu Hong Van, also from Hung Yen, as the deputy chairman of the Central Inspection Commission, serving as Tran Cam Tu’s deputy.

While it is impossible to know the true nature of Lam’s relationship with Tu, there is believed to be some bad blood. Many saw the Central Inspection Commission, which is in charge of investigations into senior leaders, as one of only two institutional checks on Lam, as he was using the investigative resources of the Ministry of Public Security to take down rivals in the Politburo.

Van is seen as Lam’s eyes and ears on the Central Inspection Commission to ensure that it is not turned against the general secretary or his allies.

If there were previously concerns about the Nghe An-Ha Tinh faction dominating Vietnamese elite politics, they seem to be diminished since Vuong Dinh Hue’s forced resignation earlier in April. Lam has ensured that his own Hung Yen faction is in the ascendancy.

In addition to those mentioned above, the senior ranks of the Ministry of Defence and People’s Army are slowly being peppered with individuals from Hung Yen, including Lieutenant General and Deputy Minister Hoang Xuan Chien, and Lieutenant General Nguyen Hong Thai, the commander of Military Region 1, one of two along the border with China.

This is no coincidence, as the People’s Army is an alternate power centre to the Ministry of Public Security. It is a trusted political institution that Lam has little sway over, despite his new role as chairman of the Central Military Commission, the most senior leadership body of the military.

Lam might be trying to install some loyalists, but the military and Ministry of Public Security have always been institutional rivals. At the very least, Lam wants to ensure that the military will not challenge him at the 14th Congress in 2026. The People’s Army accounts for the single largest bloc on the Central Committee, currently accounting for around 13 per cent of its members.

Perhaps the exception to the Hung Yen faction is the recent addition to the Politburo of Le Minh Hung, the former governor of the State Bank of Vietnam. Hung hails from Ha Tinh, but he has close familial ties to Lam. Hung’s father was the former minister of public security, Le Minh Huong, who guided Lam’s career. Hung currently heads the Central Committee’s Organisation Commission, putting him in charge of all party personnel appointments ahead of the 14th Congress, making him an indispensable ally to the general secretary.

Hung, along with Minister of Public Security Luong Tam Quang, and a third Politburo member, Do Van Chien, accompanied Lam to China.

Lam is expected to continue weaponising the anti-corruption campaign as a cudgel against rivals, to keep officials in line and loyal, and to deter challenges to his rule.

There are still rumours that retired general Luong Cuong will assume the presidency, returning to the traditional balance of power in the “Four Pillars” leadership structure. Yet Lam seems quite comfortable with both jobs. Following his trip to China, he will travel to the United States in September to address the UN General Assembly.

If anyone can defy the norm of collective leadership, it is Lam, who is putting all the pieces in place for an unprecedented accumulation of power.

Zachary Abuza is a professor at the National War College in Washington, DC, where he focuses on Southeast Asian politics and security issues. The views are his own and do not reflect those of the National War College or Department of Defense.