Originally published by the Voice of America (www.voanews.com).
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May 29, 2007

Vietnam Communists Dominate Election Results
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http://enews.voanews.com/t?ctl=17A540D:A6F02AD83191E160284BD4E2B286764B9574F7DCC14957C0 Communist Party
candidates elected to over 90 percent of seats in National Assembly
Communist Party candidates have been elected to more than 90 percent
of the seats in Vietnam's National Assembly. The government announced
the results of the May 21 election on Tuesday. Matt Steinglass reports
from Hanoi.







Residents leave a voting station in Hanoi, 20 May 2007There were 875
candidates running for 500 seats in last week's Vietnamese National
Assembly elections. But the outcome was never in doubt.

Bui Ngoc Thanh, the head of the National Assembly's electoral council,
announced that 91 percent of the 493 winning candidates were members
of the Communist Party.

Thanh says the election reflected the Vietnamese people's confidence
in the Communist Party's reformist economic policies, and the people's
right to self-government.

Vietnam maintains a one-party system. The National Assembly has gained
some influence since 1992, when a new constitution assigned it a
greater role in government. Once a rubber-stamp body, it now debates
changes to the law, and often questions government leaders.

In these elections, the government declared it wanted to broaden
participation to more non-Party members, but Thanh says those efforts
were disappointing.

He says the government had hoped to get 50 non-Party members as
delegates, but only 43 were elected.

The nomination process was controlled by a powerful Communist
Party-affiliated organization called the Fatherland Front.  Almost all
the candidates, including the non-party members, are nominated by the
Party, or by mass organizations like the Women's Union.

In principle, Vietnamese citizens can run as "self-nominated," or
independent, candidates. But such candidates face tough scrutiny.
Hundreds volunteered, but only 30 made it through the pre-election
approval process.

When the results were announced, it turned out that of those 30, only
one had been elected.

Officials said 99.6 percent of Vietnam's voters cast their ballots in
the elections. Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung won his National
Assembly seat, in the city of Haiphong, with 99 percent of the vote.