Corruption

Vietnam: The Curious Fall of a Communist Leader

Within four days, Dinh La Thang suffered a fall from grace not seen in Vietnam’s Communist Party in over two decades.

The Party’s Central Committee voted Thang out of the elite 19-member Politburo with a 90 percent vote on May 7. Three days later, it was confirmed that he had also been fired from his position as de facto mayor of Ho Chi Minh City.

Thang, the party explained, bore responsibility for hundreds of millions of dollars disappearing from state coffers. He subsequently accepted his punishment as “reasonable and sensible” in the midst of infighting targeting the more corrupt elements of the party.