In a secret ballot, 472 of the 473 deputies in Vietnam’s National Assembly approved the nomination of To Lam, a 66-year-old general who had been proposed by the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV), the country’s sole ruling party. The presidency is a largely ceremonial role, but it puts To Lam in a “very strong position” to become the next general secretary of the CPV, the country’s most powerful political position, said Nguyen Khac Giang, an analyst at the Singapore-based ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute. The current general secretary of the CPV, Nguyen Phu Trong, won a third term in 2021, but at age 80, he will be ineligible to run again after 2026. To Lam has been accused by human rights groups of overseeing police and intelligence operations that have violated the basic freedoms of the Vietnamese people and international law. The allegations include the 2017 kidnapping in central Berlin of Trinh Xuan Thanh, a Vietnamese businessman and former politician. German authorities have accused Hanoi of being responsible for the abduction of Thanh, who was later sentenced to life in prison in Vietnam in 2018. On March 21, Vietnam’s parliament approved the resignation of Vo Van Thuong, who had served as president for just over a year, and appointed Vo Thi Anh Xuan, the former vice president, as the country’s acting leader until a successor could be chosen. A day earlier, Thuong, 54, announced he was stepping down after the party’s Central Inspection Committee accused him of violating internal party regulations, part of an anti-corruption campaign that has ensnared the party leadership, according to the Vietnamese newspaper Tuoi Tre. The committee said that Thuong’s behavior had led to a decline in public trust and damaged the reputation of the party. Thuong took office in March 2023, two months after Nguyen Xuan Phuc resigned amid corruption scandals that erupted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Read Also: Public Security Minister appointed President of Vietnam (Portuguese version)