Võ Văn Kiệt

Võ Văn Kiệt was admitted to Singapore's Mount Elizabeth Hospital on June 3, 2008 and died at the age of 85 on June 11, 2008.

Memorial and burial services at state level for Võ Văn Kiệt were organized in Vietnam's southern Hồ Chí Minh City on Sunday morning June 15, 2008 with the participation of many residents and officials, including the country's top party and state leaders. Thousands of mourners lined the streets of Hồ Chí Minh City for the funeral of Võ Văn Kiệt.

In an interview with the BBC in 2007 he questioned whether Communist Party members were true patriots, saying: "The motherland of Vietnam doesn't belong to one person, one party or one group only."

Out of office, since 1997, Võ Văn Kiệt remained active in politics, publishing commentaries pushing for more liberalisation even as Vietnam joined the World Trade Organization in 2007 and averaged annual GDP growth of 7.5 percent since 2000.

Võ Văn Kiệt took the role of First Vice Premier and continued to push his reform agenda. In 1991, he was elected as Prime Minister, an office he held until 1997. His tenure marked the advance of the administrative branch at the expense of the influence of the Party's institutions, when the power was shared by three top leaders: General Secretary (Đỗ Mười), Prime Minister, and President (Lê Đức Anh. He initiated a large program of economic reform, reorganised the government and urged the broadening of diplomatic ties. In the early 1990s Vietnam gradually recovered from the economic crisis of the previous decade. In 1995 the country joined the ASEAN community and normalized relations with the US, ending 20 years of formal mutual enmity and American embargo after the fall of Saigon.

The conflict between reformist and conservative factions increased and culminated in a series of power struggles in the mid-1990s. Representing the reformists, Võ Văn Kiệt advocated for further privatisation of state dominated economy, as well as democratization - an approach criticised by his political rivals as dangerous to "socialist orientation". In 1996, after the party could not create a consensus on personnel arrangement, all of the three top leaders remained in their positions. However, factionalism was only intensified and eventually led both Võ Văn Kiệt and his opponents (Mười, Anh) to step down at the same time in 1997. They continued to influence the country affairs as Advisors for Standing Committee of the party until 2001.

Võ Văn Kiệt led Vietnam's economic reform of the 1990s and its reopening to the outside world after decades of isolation. His death raises questions about which way the communist party in Vietnam would move on. There were signs in late 2010s that Võ Văn Kiệt's reformist allies had been losing their influence.

In 1982, he was promoted to Deputy chairman of the Council of Ministers (Vice Premier) and became Chairman of the State Planning Commission. In 1987, he was appointed First Deputy Prime Minister of Vietnam and assumed the role of Acting Prime Minister from March to June 1988 after the sudden death of Phạm Hùng. In the tradition of the party's organisation, he should have been made Premier. However, allegedly due to a personal quarrel between Võ Văn Kiệt and Nguyễn Văn Linh- the Secretary General and his longtime superior - as well as opposition from conservative members of the Politburo, Đỗ Mười was chosen instead. In the plenary session of the National Assembly in 1988, however, many delegates nominated him as a second candidate. Even though he got only 35% of votes, this was unprecedented, as elections in the National Assembly had previously had one candidates and they were essentially legitimation of decisions made by the Party Politburo.

In 1960, he was elected alternate member of the Communist Party Central Committee and a member of COSVN in 1961, in command of communist forces in Saigon and surrounding areas. After North Vietnamese forces took control of Saigon on April 30, 1975, he led the takeover of the city and in 1976 was appointed as Chairman of the People's Committee (alias governor) as well deputy party secretary of the city, which had been renamed to Ho Chi Minh City in memory of the deceased leader.

After the communist victory in 1975 he became party secretary of Saigon, and quietly defied hard-line official policy by trying to work with officials and businesses associated with the defeated government. As prime minister, Võ Văn Kiệt presided over a period of dramatic economic growth and foreign investment.

Võ Văn Kiệt was a member of the Viet Minh independence movement, he fought against the French colonial powers in the First Indochina War (1946–54) in Southern Vietnam. According to Geneva Accords, communist cadres were forced to gather in North Vietnam, but he was among those who remained in the South, moving between secret bases in the southeastern region. His first wife, Trần Kim Anh, and his two children were killed in a rocket attack by US forces in 1966.

Võ Văn Kiệt (Vietnamese: [vɔ̌ˀ vaŋ kîək]; 23 November 1922 – 11 June 2008) was a Vietnamese politician who served as the Prime Minister of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam from 1991 to 1997. He was a well regarded Vietnamese revolutionary and political leader. He was a revolutionary veteran fighter in the long war against the French colonialists and then South Vietnamese and American forces in South Vietnam during the Vietnam War. In the difficult years following the war, he was one of the most prominent political leaders that led the innovation (Đổi mới) policy in Vietnam. He served as Prime Minister of Vietnam from 8 August 1991 to 25 September 1997, the period experienced the communist nation's return to the world arena after decades of war and isolation.

Võ Văn Kiệt was born Phan Văn Hòa in 1922 into a peasant family in Trung Hiệp village, Vũng Liêm, Vĩnh Long province in the Mekong Delta in southern Vietnam, then a part of Cochinchina in what was called French Indochina. His birth name was Phan Văn Hòa and he changed it to Võ Văn Kiệt when he was admitted to the Indochinese Communist Party in 1939. He also had a pseudonym, Sáu Dân. He joined the Anti-imperialist Youth Movement and took part in the Nam Kỳ (Cochinchina) insurrection in Vũng Liêm district.