Vietnam Communist Party chief Nguyen Phu Trong, the country most powerful leader, dies at age 80

Nguyen Phu Trong, general secretary of Vietnam’s ruling Communist Party and the country’s most powerful politician, has died following months of ill health, official media said Friday. He was 80.

“General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Party Nguyen Phu Trong passed away at 13:38 on July 19, 2024, at the 108 Central Military Hospital due to old age and serious illness,” the Nhan Dan newspaper said.

Trong had dominated Vietnamese politics since 2011, when he was elected party chief. During his tenure, he worked to consolidate the Communist Party’s power in Vietnam’s single-party political system. In the decade before he took the top role in Vietnamese politics, the balance of power had shifted more toward the governmental wing led by then-Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung.