Vietnam's president resigns: Who's who and what comes next?

HANOI — Vietnam's once-staid political scene has erupted into turmoil with the forced resignation of a second president in just over a year amid constant political intrigue.

The political upheaval is making foreign investors nervous in a country where they have committed hundreds of billions of dollars, mostly in factories that export to America and Europe.

No major change is expected in key policies, such as foreign affairs or the openness to trade and foreign investment, but the new normal of unpredicted reshuffles may dent leaders' credibility and slows an already cumbersome bureaucracy, several analysts said.

A cursed job

Vo Van Thuong, 53, was effectively dismissed by the ruling Communist Party for unspecified wrongdoing, after he had spent just a year on the job.

He was seen as a rising star, the youngest member of the party's mighty Politburo, and a protege of the party chief Nguyen Phu Trong. His fall was as sudden as his rise from a relatively low position within the party ranks.

Before him, Nguyen Xuan Phuc was also unexpectedly forced to leave last year for "violations and wrongdoing", after less than two years on the presidential job. He had been credited with supporting pro-business reforms in his previous position as prime minister.

In 2018, the then president Tran Dai Quang suddenly passed away at the age of 61, prompting Trong to assume the presidency for a couple of years alongside his top job at the party.

The big four

Vietnam has no paramount ruler and is officially led by the four "pillars" — the party chief, the president, the prime minister and the parliament chairman.

The Party's General Secretary is the most powerful figure in Vietnam. Trong, the current chief, is a 79-year-old Marxist-Leninist