Vietnam's National Assembly has approved Tran Dai Quang as the country's new president, after he was nominated by the Communist Party during its congress in March.
Quang has decades of experience of managing internal security and heading off political threats to the regime.
Born in 1956 in what was then North Vietnam, Tran Dai Quang joined the security forces as a teenager in the last years of the Vietnam War. He climbed through the ranks to reach minister of public security in 2011.
The position put him in charge of all internal security forces. The ministry operates a conventional national police force, but also contains secretive departments intended to disrupt dissident activity within the single-party communist state.
Quang's track record bodes ill for the prospects of political liberalisation.
In November 2015, he warned that "opposition persons have illegally established more than 60 groups and organisations in the name of democracy and human rights," in a report to the National Assembly.
But he added that security forces had "prevented activities of opposition persons in the country who stirred and agitated the people to gather, march, and protest against the Party and the State".
Not all the ministry's actions under his leadership met with public approval.
In February, rare public criticism broke out after media reports that the ministry introduced legislation to allow traffic police to commandeer vehicles and other assets.
In January, it was also reported in Tuoi Tre News that the ministry was backing down over an initiative to fine car owners who failed to equip their vehicles with fire extinguishers.
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