Vietnam's ruling Communist Party re-elected its 76-year-old chief Nguyen Phu Trong for a rare third five-year term on Sunday, as the Southeast Asian country battled its biggest coronavirus outbreak since the pandemic began. Trong, who emerged on top in a power struggle at the last congress in 2016 and has spearheaded a "blazing furnace" crackdown on corruption in the last five years, was granted an exception to party rules that say people over the age of 65 should retire, cementing his position as one of the country's strongest and longest-serving leaders for decades. "Comrade Nguyen Phu Trong was elected to be the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Vietnam, term XIII," the official Vietnam News Agency (VNA) reported.