Veteran Revolutionary Named Vietnam Premier

Do Muoi, a veteran revolutionary who reportedly directed purges against corruption in Vietnam’s ruling Communist Party, was chosen premier Wednesday, Radio Hanoi reported.

Muoi was elected on the opening day of a regular National Assembly session, the broadcast monitored in Bangkok said. He replaces Pham Hung, who died of a heart attack in March.

Muoi, 71, is the third-ranking member of the Politburo, Vietnam’s top policy-making body. He gave up the vice premiership last year after becoming the No. 2 man in the party secretariat, where he is said to have directed a purge of inept and corrupt elements in the 1.8-million-member party.

Little Known to Vietnamese

Muoi, who is little known to most Vietnamese, joined the Indochinese Communist Party in 1939 and held key party and government posts during the struggle against the French colonialists and then the Americans and South Vietnamese.

In several top economy-related government posts after the 1975 Communist victory, he helped forge the strict Marxist policies that the party now says led to Vietnam’s ruin.

Southerners are said to resent him for having led a disastrous effort in 1978 at “socialist transformation” of private business and commerce in the traditionally capitalist south.

Vietnamese sources had said that Muoi was the most likely choice as premier because of his reputation as a party organizer and disciplinarian.

Some Western diplomats have said his choice would send an unwelcome signal to the average Vietnamese, who preferred acting Premier Vo Van Kiet, 66, a leading pioneer of economic reform. The selection of Do Muoi could slow down the reform momentum, the Hanoi-based diplomats said.

At the National Assembly session, Kiet, who had been acting premier since Pham Hung’s death, noted among other serious economic problems an acute food shortage in the northern provinces since early this year. Vietnam has appealed for foreign emergency aid to offset the shortages caused by crop failures last year.

Kiet said that because production stagnated as the population grew, the amount of food available per capita in those provinces dropped from 581 pounds in 1982 to 506 pounds in 1987. He called for continuation of economic reforms based on decentralized management and material incentives, according to the official Vietnam News Agency.