Prime Minister of Vietnam - History

History

Ho Chi Minh, who also served as the country's President, was appointed Vietnam's first prime minister in 1946 by the National Assembly, after having served months as Acting Chairman of the Provisional Government and foreign minister in the aftermath of the 1945 August Revolution. Both the 1946 and 1959 Constitutions state that the National Assembly had the power to appoint and relieve the prime minister of his duties. The prime minister presided over the Council of Ministers, the highest executive body of state, from 1981 until it was renamed to Government in the 1992 constitution. The office of prime minister was renamed in the 1980 constitution to that of Chairman of the Council of Ministers.

Pham Van Dong, the second Prime Minister of Vietnam, served as North Vietnamese Prime Minister from 1955 until 1976, when he became prime minister of a unified Vietnam, and then until 1987, when he resigned. At his resignation, he was the longest-serving prime minister in Vietnamese history, and the oldest serving prime minister in the world. He often lamented that he was one of the world's weakest prime ministers, on one occasion saying; "I can do nothing. When I say something, nobody listens. If I propose changing a deputy minister, it turns out to be impossible. I cannot even choose my own ministers." Since the death of Pham Hung in 1988, the prime minister has been ranked Number 3 in the order of precedence of the Communist Party's Politburo.