To Lam emerges as Vietnam’s ‘supreme leader’ after being elected president

Communist Party head To Lam is sworn in as Vietnam’s president on Tuesday.

Photo: EPA Vietnam’s Communist Party boss To Lam was elected president by the National Assembly on Tuesday, capping his bid to centralise authority in a nation where senior cadres have traditionally governed collectively.

In less than two years as party chief, the 68-year-old has swept aside rivals and transformed the country through an aggressive reform drive – literally redrawing the map as he combined provinces and slashed bureaucracy.

Lam has set an ambitious target of 10 per cent annual growth for the Southeast Asian manufacturing hub and muscled the party behind his vision for development-oriented reform.

After securing another term as the party’s general secretary in January, Lam has now taken over the number two position in Vietnamese politics – unifying leadership of the party and state as President Xi Jinping did in neighbouring China.

The move has “effectively turned him into Vietnam’s ‘supreme leader’”, said Le Hong Hiep, senior fellow at the Vietnam Studies Programme at Singapore’s ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute.

It has “transitioned the country’s leadership from a consensus-based collective model to a strongman leadership style,” he said.

To Lam (left) receives a bouquet from National Assembly chairman Tran Thanh Man in Hanoi on Tuesday.

Photo: VNA/AP Tran Thanh Man, chairman of the National Assembly, said 100 per cent of deputies who were present approved the resolution electing Lam president for the 2026-2031 term.

In a speech to the parliament after being sworn in, Lam called his new dual role a “huge honour” and a “sacred and noble duty”.

Elevated to party chief after general secretary Nguyen Phu Trong’s death in 2024, Lam has shocked the country with the pace of his changes.

He has eliminated whole layers of government, abolishing eight ministries or agencies and cutting nearly 150,000 jobs from the state payroll, while pushing massive infrastructure projects.

Lam is now promoting a “new growth model” that speeds up decision-making and unleashes the private sector to achieve double-digit annual growth for the next five years. “The odds of his reform programme succeeding have increased because he has further scope to push it forward,” said former US ambassador to Vietnam Daniel Kritenbrink, reflecting on Lam’s “unprecedented power and influence”.

Vietnam is both a repressive one-party state and a regional economic bright spot, where the Communist Party

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