Vietnamese vote to elect new communist-controlled parliament

May 20, 2007, 13:54 GMT

Hanoi - Vietnamese voters turned out to vote in a new National Assembly on Sunday in one-party elections touted by the ruling Communist Party as a milestone of democracy.

Nearly all the 875 candidates standing for seats in the 500-member parliament, the nation's highest lawmaking body and public debating forum, are Communist Party members.

In recent months, authorities have arrested at least a dozen political activists, with state-controlled media accusing some of plotting to undermine the elections by forming illegal opposition parties and trying to field their own candidates.

Sunday morning, neighbourhood loudspeakers played the national anthem and urged people to vote in the polls, symbolically held a day after the birthday of Communist Party founder Ho Chi Minh.

'This election is a great political event of the country,' announced the loudspeaker near Quan Thanh ward in Hanoi.

'Through the election, our people exercise their right to vote for the most-deserving people to the highest state body, contributing to the construction of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam of the people, by the people and for the people,' the announcer said.

On Sunday, more than 300 people were lined up at Quan Thanh when polls opened at 7 am, with Communist Party General Secretary Nong Duc Manh the first to cast his ballot.

Manh did not speak to the press, but voters at the polling place said they hoped the new parliament would continue the country's economic reforms, which have made Vietnam Asia's second-fastest growing economy behind China.

'I hope the new NA members will make the country strong and make people rich,' said 99-year-old Pham Thi Hong, who was the second person to vote after Manh.

The government this year encouraged more 'self-nominated' candidates to participate in the elections, but only 30 made it through a three-round vetting process by the communist-linked Fatherland Front.

In March, state-controlled media accused two arrested dissidents - Catholic priest Father Nguyen Van Ly and human-rights lawyer Nguyen Van Dai - of working with US-based democracy groups to form own illegal parties and influence the elections.

'Their purpose is to form opposition forces, nominate people to run for National Assembly membership ... and join hands with other forces to cause disturbance,' an article in Family and Society newspaper said.

Both Ly and Dai are members of Vietnam's tiny pro-democracy Bloc 8406 movement, which went public last year in a manifesto signed by 200 people.

Ly and Dai were recently put on trial for 'disseminating propaganda against the Socialist Republic' and sentenced to eight years and five years in prison, respectively.

The National Assembly is Vietnam's highest lawmaking body and in recent years has moved from a mere rubber stamp to a forum of occasional open debate, with government ministers recently being grilled by deputies on corruption in televised hearings.

However, analysts say the ultimate power lies in the Communist Party's powerful Central Committee, which last year chose the new prime minister, Nguyen Tan Dung, who was later approved by the parliament.

Vietnam's government has been making moves in the last year to promote its democratic credentials.

Prime Minister Dung and President Nguyen Minh Triet both recently held on-line 'chats' with ordinary citizens and the National Assembly elections have been widely touted by state-controlled media.

Dissidents inside Vietnam and overseas exile groups have condemned Sunday's polls.

'The so-called democratic reform is just a farce,' Diem H. Do, chairman of the overseas anti-communist group Viet Tan, said in a statement released over the weekend.

'The regime stays in power by terrorizing its own citizens and through fraudulent elections like the one on May 20,' the statement said.

Viet Tan - which is classified as a terrorist organization by Vietnam's government - has called for a general boycott of the election but it was unclear if the call had any effect.

Turnout numbers among the 56 million eligible voters was not immediately clear. The last National Assembly elections five years ago reported turnout of more than 90 per cent.