Tô Lâm

Biography

To Lam was born in 1957 in Hung Yen province in northern Vietnam, the son of a police colonel. He entered the Central Public Security School in 1974 and studied at the People's Security Academy until 1979, later earning a doctorate in law. He joined the Communist Party of Vietnam in 1981 and spent his entire career in the security police, working for years in its political protection departments before heading the ministry's main security directorate.

He became Deputy Minister of Public Security in 2010 and joined the party's Central Committee in 2011. In 2016 he was made Minister of Public Security and entered the Politburo, and he became a leading figure in General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong's anti-corruption campaign, which brought down senior officials and business figures. German and Slovak authorities accused him of involvement in the 2017 abduction of Trinh Xuan Thanh from Berlin, and critics accuse him of leading a crackdown on dissidents and civil society.

In May 2024 he was elected President of Vietnam. After Trong's death he was chosen General Secretary of the party and Secretary of its Central Military Commission on 3 August 2024, and gave up the presidency that October. He has since pushed a large administrative and bureaucratic restructuring. The 14th Party Congress re-elected him General Secretary in January 2026, and in April 2026 he was elected president again, holding both of the country's top posts.