Vietnam's president dies after viral
illness
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[September 21, 2018]
By Khanh Vu and James Pearson
HANOI (Reuters) - Vietnam's President Tran
Dai Quang, a former chief of internal security who became one of the
most high-profile leaders in the communist-ruled country, died on Friday
after an illness, state media said.
Quang's rise, at a time of growing dissent on social media and
challenges to the party's authority, signaled limits to Vietnam's
liberal agenda, despite a growing openness to social change and sweeping
economic reform, experts say.
Quang, 61, died in a military hospital in Hanoi of a "serious illness
despite efforts by domestic and international doctors and professors,"
Vietnam Television said.
He had hosted a reception for China's Supreme Court chief on Wednesday,
state-owned newspaper Vietnam News said.
Quang had been ill for months, said former health minister Nguyen Quoc
Trieu, who now oversees healthcare for high-ranking officials.
"He began showing symptoms of illness in June last year and has been
treated in Japan six times since," Trieu told Reuters.
"He suffered from a kind of highly virulent virus, for which there has
not been any efficient treatment."
Vietnam has no paramount ruler and is officially led by four "pillars":
its president, prime minister, the chief of its Communist Party and the
national assembly chair.
The president has a more ceremonial role, although he sits on the
powerful decision-making politburo.
Before his April 2016 appointment as president, Quang had been minister
of public security, heading an organization with broad powers
responsible for intelligence gathering and thwarting domestic and
foreign threats to the party.
ILLNESS RUMORS
Posts about the death of Quang, once tipped by some analysts as a
potential general secretary, spread quickly on Facebook before state
media took the rare step of announcing it within two hours of the event.
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Vietnam's President Tran Dai Quang attends a news conference in
Hanoi, Vietnam September 6, 2017. REUTERS/Kham/File Photo
Rumors of his illness had circulated on social media for months, and
there was no significant reaction in Vietnam's benchmark index.
At one of Quang's last appearances, during a visit to Hanoi by
Indonesian President Joko Widodo on September 11, the president
appeared visibly unwell and stumbled as he stepped on to a platform
to inspect a guard of honor.
Quang hailed from a small farming community 115 km (70 miles) south
of Hanoi, rising through party ranks to become a police general and
Politburo member.
"We are saddened to hear the news that the president has died," said
Bui Duc Phi, council chairman of the village where he was born.
Vietnam's constitution provides for the vice president to perform
the president's duties should he be unable to work.
"Vice president Dang Thi Ngoc Thinh will handle his duties until the
National Assembly elects a new president," said prominent lawyer
Tran Vu Hai.
The national assembly is set to meet in late October, but the date
could be brought forward, he added.
(Additional reporting by Kham Nguyen, Mai Nguyen and Minh Nguyen;
Writing by Raju Gopalakrishnan; Editing by Neil Fullick and Clarence
Fernandez)
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