Hanoi Party chief takes over as National Assembly chairman

He was the only candidate recommended by the NA Standing Committee, and there was not a single dissenting vote from the 98.54 percent of house members present at the plenary session.

His predecessor as NA leader, Nguyen Thi Kim Ngan, stepped down on Tuesday.

Hue, 64, a native of the central Nghe An Province, has a doctorate in economics and has been an academic in Vietnam and abroad.

He has twice been a member of the Party Central Committee and NA, and once a member of the Politburo, the Party's decision-making body.

He served in the Academy of Finance in Hanoi for 22 years, holding several senior positions including head of the accounting department and deputy principal of the academy in charge of training.

From 1986 to 1990 he was a research fellow at the University of Economics in Bratislava, Slovakia.

He was appointed deputy head of the State Audit Office of Vietnam in 2001, and became its head in 2006.

He was minister of finance from August 2011 to May 2013, head of the Central Economic Commission from December 2012 to April 2016 and became deputy prime minister in April 2016.

In February 2020 he became Party Secretary of Hanoi replacing Hoang Trung Hai, who received a warning from the Politburo for violations at state-owned steel company TISCO.

In October last year Hue was reelected Hanoi Party Committee secretary for the 2020-25 term.

At the ongoing session, NA members will vote for 25 leading positions, including NA chairperson and the country’s president and prime minister, three of the four pillars of the political system. The fourth is the Party general secretary.

The Communist Party Central Committee in January elected Nguyen Phu Trong as the general secretary for a third term.

Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc has been nominated to be the next president. The new head of state will take the oath of office on April 2.