To Lam elected Vietnam president as he consolidates top leadership roles

HANOI: Vietnam’s National Assembly on Tuesday unanimously elected Communist Party Secretary General To Lam as state president for a five-year term, giving him control of the country’s two most powerful posts and marking a significant shift from the country’s long-standing collective leadership model.

According to parliament’s website, all 495 deputies present at the National Assembly session backed the Communist Party’s nomination of Lam, while five lawmakers were absent. Officials had said nominations for the top state leadership positions were finalised at a meeting in late March.

The vote gives the former public security chief a second major mandate for the next five years after he secured another term as general secretary in January. Parliament was also scheduled later on Tuesday to elect a new prime minister to replace outgoing premier Pham Minh Chinh.

In a televised address after the vote, Lam said it was an honour to hold both offices and pledged “a new growth model with science, technology, innovation, and digital transformation as the primary driving forces”. He also said he would prioritise self-reliance in defence.

Lam said his main goals were to preserve stability, advance rapid and sustainable national development and improve “all aspects of people’s lives”.

Power concentrated in one office

Analysts said the combination of the two roles could help Lam pursue his agenda more effectively, while also raising concerns about the concentration of power in a single leader.

Le Hong Hiep, a senior fellow at the ISEAS Yusof Ishak Institute in Singapore, said, “Concentrating greater power in To Lam’s hands could pose risks to Vietnam’s political system, such as increased authoritarianism.” He added that such consolidation “could enable Vietnam to formulate and implement policies more quickly and effectively,” which could support growth.

Alexander Vuving of the Asia-Pacific Centre for Security Studies in the United States said the merger of the two offices “will shift Vietnam’s domestic politics to a new normal where most of the old assumptions about Vietnam’s politics, including those about collective leadership, are no longer valid”.

Lam had briefly held both positions for several months after the death in 2024 of party chief Nguyen Phu Trong. Even after handing over the presidency to army general Luong Cuong, he continued to travel widely and represent Vietnam in meetings with foreign leaders.

Economic and foreign policy direction

During his first term as party chief, the 68-year-old leader introduced broad economic changes aimed at improving Vietnam’s competitiveness. Those measures drew both support and criticism.

Lam has said he wants to pursue double-digit growth through a development strategy less dependent on low-cost manufacturing, which has long underpinned Vietnam’s export-led expansion and has been driven by foreign multinationals.

His policy moves have at times unsettled the administration and businesses, though he has also shown flexibility in carrying them out. He has supported the expansion of private conglomerates, but before his reappointment he also issued a directive stressing the leading role of state-owned enterprises, a move seen as reassuring party traditionalists.

Foreign investors, an important part of Vietnam’s export-reliant economy, have often welcomed the country’s political stability and view Lam as a pro-business leader. At the same time, his support for national champions and his push for very rapid growth have prompted concerns among some observers about favouritism, corruption risks, asset bubbles and waste.

On foreign policy, analysts said Lam has maintained Vietnam’s “Bamboo Diplomacy”, seeking to balance ties with major powers while broadening international partnerships. Khang Vu, a visiting scholar at Boston College, said, “Lam’s double-hat would not signal any changes in Vietnam’s foreign policy, even if there are concerns that Vietnam is concentrating more power in a single individual.”