Vietnam votes as Communist Party fields nearly 93% of parliamentary candidates

Tens of millions of Vietnamese voted on yesterday to elect MPs from a list of candidates almost exclusively fielded by the Communist Party, ensuring the party’s continued overwhelming dominance.



The five-yearly elections, in which 73.5 million to 79 million voters will choose 500 members of the National Assembly and representatives for local councils, are one of the few nods to democratic practice in the tightly controlled one-party state, where the most powerful positions are decided by Communist senior officials ahead of the vote.



Nearly 93 per cent of the 864 parliamentary candidates are Communist Party members, while 7.5 per cent are independents, according to the national election council, down from 8.5 per cent in 2021.



The party, which has ruled the South-east Asian nation unopposed for decades, holds 97 per cent of the seats.