Vietnam Party Leader to Quit, Officials Say
Vietnamese Communist Party Secretary General Nguyen Van Linh will resign at a coming party meeting, Vietnamese officials said Wednesday.
They said that Linh, who is 74 and has been ill since late October, will step down from the party’s top post for health reasons at a plenum of its Central Committee to be held within two months.
“He is too old. There will be a party plenum after Tet (Vietnamese lunar new year),” said Bui Tin, deputy chief editor of the Communist Party daily Nhan Dan. He said Linh’s successor will be decided then.
The three-day Tet holiday starts Jan. 27.
One Eastern European diplomat said: “He has to step down because of his health. If they want to make the Communist Party stronger, they need another leader.”
Vietnamese officials in Hanoi said that Linh, hailed as a reformer in the mold of Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev when he was elected party general secretary in late 1986, has been ill since catching a severe cold during a visit to East Germany.
Officials said any decision on his successor will have to be approved at a full congress of party members, which they said will not be held until next year.
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