The 80-year-old leader’s death sets the stage for a leadership race during the National Party Congress in 2026.

Thousands of people across Vietnam paid their final respects to Communist Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong, the most powerful leader the country has seen in decades, ahead of his funeral ceremony and burial.

The 80-year-old, who died in hospital in the capital Hanoi last week, led the party since 2011 and oversaw a high-profile anticorruption drive that swept through the party, police, armed forces and business.

On Friday, people wearing black queued in the capital, Hanoi, to see the leader before he was buried at Mai Dich Cemetery, the final resting place for many senior leaders in Vietnam.

Images on social media showed his hearse being paraded through the streets of the capital before the burial.

Trong’s coffin, draped in the red and yellow of Vietnam’s flag, was laid beneath his smiling portrait and dozens of medals at the National Funeral House in Hanoi since Thursday.

At least 210,000 people paid their respects to their leader at ceremonies in Hanoi, southern Ho Chi Minh City and his village on the outskirts of the capital, authorities said.

Top Communist Party officials paid tribute, including President To Lam, who took over as caretaker general secretary a day before Trong’s death was announced.

South Korean Prime Minister Han Duck-soo; Wang Huning, the fourth-ranked leader in the Chinese Communist Party; former Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga; and Cuban National Assembly President Esteban Lazo Hernandez were also among those in attendance during a ceremony on Thursday.

All flags across the country flew at half-staff, while entertainment and sporting events were suspended during the mourning period.

Trong enjoyed remarkable longevity in office, during a mandate that rights groups say has coincided with increasing authoritarianism.

He was praised earlier by US President Joe Biden as “a champion of deep ties” between Vietnam and the United States, while Russian President Vladimir Putin hailed him as a “true friend of Russia”.

Trong, who studied in the Soviet Union from 1981 to 1983, was the first Vietnamese Communist Party chief to visit the White House. He advocated a pragmatic foreign policy of “bamboo diplomacy”, a phrase he coined that refers to the plant’s flexibility, bending but not breaking in the shifting headwinds of geopolitics.

With his death, the stage is set for a leadership race at the party’s national congress in 2026.