Vietnam Communist Party nominates Vo Van Thuong as new president - sources

The 13th-tenure Central Committee of the Communist Party of Vietnam held an extraordinary meeting on Wednesday to decide on personnel affairs.

Thuong, 52, is the youngest member of the party's Politburo, the country's top decision-making body, and is widely regarded as being close to General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong, Vietnam's most powerful figure.

Trong is the main architect of the party's "blazing furnace" crackdown on graft, under which hundreds of officials have been investigated and many forced to quit, including former president Nguyen Xuan Phuc and two deputy prime ministers.

Thuong's nomination by the party's Central Committee upholds an earlier decision by the Politburo and will need approval by the rubber-stamp National Assembly, which is due to hold an extraordinary session on Thursday and a formal sitting in May.

The president in Vietnam holds a largely ceremonial role, but is among the top four political figures in the country, together with the party's general secretary, the prime minister and the head of the national assembly.

Vo Thi Anh Xuan, a 53-year-old from the southern province of An Giang, is currently the Acting President of Vietnam.

The predecessor, 69-year-old Nguyen Xuan Phuc, resigned from the Party and the State Presidency in January with approval from the Party Central Committee.

Additionally in this meeting, the Party Central Committee members also voted to elect three new members to the 13th-tenure Central Inspection Committee, which is the anti-corruption body of the Party.

The members are Nguyen Manh Hung; Dinh Huu Thanh, member of the Standing Committee of the Quang Binh Province's Party Committee, and Chairman of the province's inspection committee; member Le Van Thanh, member of the Standing Committee of Can Tho City's Party Committee and Chairman of the Inspection Committee of Can Tho City's Party Committee.