Xaysomphone Phomvihane

Xaysomphone Phomvihane was born on 12 December 1956 in Na Mao village, Viengxay District, in Houaphanh Province, the base area of the Pathet Lao during the Lao civil war. He was the eldest son of Kaysone Phomvihane, a founder of the Lao People's Revolutionary Party and its leader from the communist victory of 1975 until his death in 1992, and of Thongvin Phomvihane. He had five siblings, among them Thongsavanh Phomvihane, later Minister of Foreign Affairs, Santiphab Phomvihane, later Minister of Finance, and Major General Sanyahak Phomvihane, who died in 2013.

He attended primary and secondary school in Vietnam and China, including the 67 School in Nanning, and then the military school in Houaphanh Province from 1974 to 1976. He went on to study at Moscow State University in the Soviet Union and returned to Laos in 1983, spending a year as an instructor at the National Academy of Politics and Public Administration. He later received a doctorate in political science from the Soviet Academy of Sciences.

Xaysomphone joined the Lao People's Revolutionary Party in 1984 and began his political career in 1987 at the party office of Savannakhet Province. In 1989 he became deputy governor of the province, with responsibility for economic relations with foreign countries. At the party's fifth congress in 1991 he was elected to the Central Committee, where he was then the youngest member, and in 1993 he became governor of Savannakhet.

In 1995 he was appointed Minister of Finance, and he led Lao delegations to meetings of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. Oversight of the privatisation of state businesses was moved to his ministry during his tenure. In 1998 he became a minister in the Office of the Prime Minister.

He was elected to the National Assembly in 2002 and in 2006 became a member of its Standing Committee and vice president of the Assembly. In 2016 he was promoted to the Politburo and became president of the Lao Front for National Development, the umbrella organisation for the country's mass organisations, where his work included disaster relief after Tropical Storm Sonca in 2017. His promotion was seen as part of the handover from the revolutionary generation to its successors.

At the party's eleventh congress in 2021 he rose to fifth place in the Politburo, and in March 2021 he succeeded Pany Yathotou as President of the National Assembly. He kept the post after the 2026 elections and congress, at which he was promoted to second place in the Politburo amid speculation that he might become prime minister. He was regarded as strongly pro Vietnamese and worked to build links between the two countries' legislatures, and he was president of the ASEAN Inter-Parliamentary Assembly in 2023 and 2024.

Xaysomphone was married to Viphavanh Phomvihane, and the couple had two children. Through his father he had Vietnamese ancestry, and he spent part of his childhood at school in Vietnam and China. Several of his siblings also held senior posts in the party, the government and the army.

Xaysomphone Phomvihane died at 11.18am on 8 August 2026, at the age of 69, of a severe inflammatory vascular disease, according to a joint announcement by the party Central Committee, the National Assembly, the government, the Lao Front for National Development and the Phomvihane family. He was still President of the National Assembly.

Laos observed five days of national mourning from 9 to 13 August, with mourning ceremonies at the National Convention Hall, and Vietnam declared two days of national mourning. Trần Thanh Mẫn, Chairman of the National Assembly of Vietnam, led a Vietnamese delegation to pay respects. Thousands attended his state funeral on the That Luang esplanade in Vientiane, where the eulogy was delivered by Thongloun Sisoulith.

As the son of the founder of the Lao state, Xaysomphone carried one of the most prominent names in Lao politics, and his rise through provincial government, the finance ministry and the National Assembly made him one of the most senior figures of the post revolutionary generation. He died as the second ranking member of the Politburo, and was remembered by the party as an experienced leader at both local and national level and by Vietnam as a close friend of its people.