Nguyen Phu Trong, the hard-line general secretary of Vietnam’s Communist Party who presided over his country’s economic and geopolitical transformation, and reshaped its leadership with his “blazing furnace” anticorruption campaign, died on Friday at a hospital in Hanoi.
His death was announced by the official Nhan Dan newspaper, which said that Mr. Trong had died of “old age” and an unspecified serious illness.
Speculation had swirled in January about Mr. Trong’s health after he skipped meetings with several foreign leaders.
For 12 years, Mr. Trong sat at the apex of power in Vietnam’s Communist hierarchy.
He consolidated power in one of the world’s few remaining Communist dictatorships, significantly weakening the collective form of leadership that previously characterized the country’s Communist Party.
Persons:
Phu Trong, Trong, Lam
Organizations:
Communist Party, Nhan Dan, Mr, Communist
Locations:
Hanoi