🇻🇳 All the president's rumours

🇸🇬 Pritam Singh charms Singapore media, me in court appearance

Hello friends!

Bumpy trip back home, but have made it! Feeling the strong urge to pivot to Aukus, but I assume that’s just a side effect of the tap water in Canberra.

Two massive stories this week that I missed in the week ahead on Monday — embarrassing! But they’re both developments that will be with us for a while yet, so no stress.

In Vietnam’s worst-kept secret, the President stood down on Wednesday amid corruption chat and down the way in Singapore, Workers’ Party boss Pritam Singh headed to court (and charmed the internet on the way). 

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See you Monday

Erin Cook

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🇻🇳 Who’s next in Vietnam’s presidential hot seat

I’ve definitely used this stock photo before, but I love it! (Photo by Hieu Tran on Unsplash)

Vo Van Thuong is outta here. The Vietnamese president stepped down from the post after a Communist Party meeting on Wednesday. “The government said he had broken party rules and negatively affected its reputation,” the BBC reported. He’s the second president to bail in just over a year. President isn’t in itself a big deal and largely ceremonial but it’s certainly high-profile and a hot tip for future general-secretaries. Thuong is just 53 years old and was widely seen as a future serious contender to lead the party. 

So, what actually happened? Don’t expect too much transparency from the government,

Michael Tatarski

of Vietnam Weekly warns in his excellent immediate analysis. “Violations and flaws” in leadership is the official response but the Saigon rumour mill is in overdrive and the word is Phúc Sơn Group. The company is based in Vĩnh Phúc Province and, until very recently, hadn’t really made many money moves. Some big-ticket projects raised eyebrows and investigations which have since seen three executives and the chair of the board arrested, Mike writes. 

Local party bosses have since been implicated, but how did we go from a province I’ve never heard of to the halls of Hanoi? That “may never be fully known” but, as the last few years have shown us and Mike puts so succinctly, it could be “the latest in a long line of examples of government leaders enriching themselves through real estate developers.”

Le Hong Hiep over a Fulcrum has heard word on what could’ve done it: ‘Unofficial but reliable sources have indicated that during the time he was still serving as Party Secretary of Quang Ngai Province (2011-14), one of Thuong’s relatives received VND60 billion (US$2.4 million at current exchange rates) from Phuc Son, allegedly for Thuong to build his ancestral shrine.’

Well, that’s not good.

It’s bad for political stability and it’s bad for the ‘blazing furnaces’ of corruption. Tricky rules within the politburo and the successor fight for General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong mean options are rather limited. Two would-be contenders have much more powerful ministerial rules, while another has health issues. That leaves just current Minister of Public Security, To Lam, and Standing Member of the CPV Secretariat Truong Thi Mai as potentials, Le Hong Hiep notes.

But nothing is for sure and the general secretary is the bigger catch. Shoring up the presidency is nothing compared to in-fighting and factionalism ahead of the 2026 succession at the very top of the party. ‘The CPV and its top leadership may wish to mitigate the uncertainties by expediting the power transition process and electing a new president who can safely serve out his or her term until 2026. This should be their primary focus now,’ Le Hong Hiep prescribes. 

And in evidence that calling in women only in times of crisis is not a strictly Westminster system phenomenon, Vice President Vo Thi Anh Xuan is back. She stepped up as acting president for a month last year after Nguyen Xuan Phuc was ditched. She will hold the role until a new president is approved by the National Assembly, VNExpress reports. 

Vietnam has been fascinating lately — the combo of reaching out to the world for economic opportunities while maintaining extraordinary restrictions on regular Vietnamese is a combination that feels unsustainable but probably isn’t, at least in the medium term. But cracks in the Politburo seriously undermine the anti-corruption push and reasonably lead to questions like, just how deep does the rot go?

🇸🇬 Pritam Singh’s day in court

Here’s a throwback. Two years ago, Singapore opposition leader and Workers’ Party boss Pritam Singh testified in front of the Committee of Privileges about a former MP Raeesah Khan. The November 2021 hearing ended in allegations of lying and police opened an investigation. 

This week, Singh faced court and pled not guilty to two charges under Section 31(q) of the Parliament (Privileges, Immunities and Powers) Act. He’ll be back for a pretrial motion April 17, the Straits Times reports. If found guilty he could be jailed for up to three years and, under new laws, could be booted and banned from serving in parliament for five years.

He probably won’t see a jail cell or be cast off the ballots, constitutional law expert Kevin Tan, an adjunct professor at the National University of Singapore, predicts. He told the Straits Times that even if Singh is found guilty the new law probably won’t apply in this case.

It’s a setback for WP ahead of elections that must be held within the next 18 months or so. “A setback that you would rather not have to deal with, because now time and resources will have to be invested in preparing the defence,” Associate Professor Eugene Tan of the Singapore Management University told Channel News Asia. Tan isn’t ready to count WP out just yet, however. “But given that things have come to where they are, I think we can expect the Workers’ Party — as they have indicated — that they will take it in their stride, and they will not let this matter be a distraction for them.”

The case could leave the governing People’s Action Party in a better spot when it comes to campaigning, some watchers predict. Integrity, professionalism and good vibes could be a campaign message winner. That would be assuming no one remembers S Iswaran, the former transport minister on the hook for corruption charges. He slipped back into the country and surrendered his passport after a trip to Australia and ended up in a hospital bed briefly.