HCMC – The National Assembly (NA) will hold a secret ballot on April 2 to relieve Nguyen Xuan Phuc from the post of prime minister.

Phuc, who was born on July 20, 1954, in Que Son District in the central province of Quang Nam, graduated from the National Economics University in 1978.

He officially joined the Communist Party of Vietnam in 1983 and was elected to the Politburo in 2011.

Phuc was elected to the post of prime minister by more than 90% of NA deputies (446 of 490 deputies) on April 7, 2016, replacing Nguyen Tan Dung.

Before that, he held a number of leadership positions including chairman of Quang Nam Province, deputy inspector general, chairman of the Government Office, deputy prime minister, head of the Steering Committee for the North-west Region, head of the Government’s Steering Committee for Crime Prevention and Control and head of the National Steering Committee for Prevention and Control of Smuggling, Trade Fraud and Fake Commodities.

He was also deputy head of the Central Steering Committee for Prevention and Control of Corruption, deputy head of the Central Steering Committee for Judicial Reform and chairman of the Vietnam-Laos Inter-governmental Committee.

The NA will elect the new State president and prime minister on April 5 during its 11th sitting.

The NA Standing Committee will introduce Phuc as a candidate for the post of State president. This will be the first time the NA is voting to elect a prime minister as State president.