In regards to Vietnam’s election process, it’s not exactly transparent, but in a nutshell, to the best of my understanding –
Every 5 years, there is an election for the National Assembly. Candidates must be nominated by the “Fatherland Front” [Ma(.t Tra^.n To^? Quo^’c] or one of its 5 main organizations (consisting of a Woman’s group, a Youth group, a Worker’s Union, etc...)
In theory people may also run for office by self-nominating themselves, but in practice they too have to be approved by the Fatherland Front, and as I mentioned, the 238 people who attempted to do this were vetted down to 30 eligible candidates after a 3 round elimination process. The elimination process, essentially, is a thorough background check. And while I don’t know exactly what the criteria is, it’s a safe bet to say that anyone with any ties to the former Republic of South Vietnam will be banned from running. (ie, father fought in the war, family member worked as translator for the Americans, etc...)
In Vietnam, it is required that the people vote, but as far as I know, the Vietnamese people do not take it seriously. Rather, they only do it as to not run into trouble with the law. Because in Vietnam the people have national identification cards, in theory the government knows how many people there are per household in each ward, city, etc... And so the government expects the corresponding number of ballots from each house. Thus the 99% voter turn-out rate. In practice however, families will leave the task of voting to a single member of the household, who takes everyone’s national id cards and cast the ballots willy-nilly, as nobody really believes in the democratic process in Vietnam.
As a side note, in the run-up to this past election, dissidents/democracy activists were split in their views regarding the election. Some wanted to participate in the election as to gain a voice they could use to bring about gradual change (sic) whereas others called on a total boycott of the election and called on people to not vote at all or to just cast blank ballots, because according to them, the election process is a sham.
For those of you who are encouraged by the 1/500 statistic for self-nominated members winning, you’ll be pleased to know that there are actually 43/500 non-party members in the National Assembly as a result of this election cycle. However, the other 42 were hand-picked by the party, and thus did not have to self-nominate themselves.
I’m sure there are some Vietnamese foreign exchange students on this forum that might be able to give us better insight into Vietnam’s election process than what I’ve surmised above. In the meantime, I encourage you all to listen to the following news feature that aired on Radio Free Asia May 19th to understand what some people in Vietnam think about the country’s elections.
— Lân
I was told by a friend who went to Vietnam that in local races the ballots are filled with a bunch of bogus names of ill-reputable people. At the voting booths, the booth monitor basically tell people who to vote for “check here... and here...”. When asked by the voter as to why, the monitor can simply say “These other people are unqualified for the position.” And it’s true, after all. The only qualified people left are Party members. — Bao Thien Ngo 2007/06/05 15:44
Similarities ?????
For those who says 1/500 is a good sign this is the election results in 2002 which is the previous term (members are elected to 5-year terms). 3/498 seats are held by self-nomination and do not belong to Fatherland Front. 51/498 are non-party candidates.
the 1997 election:
3/450 are self-nomination
63/450 are non-party
Statistically the averages have been around 3 self-nomination and 50 non-party members. So this year the percentages of self nomination and non-party members are actually down considering that there are now more seats than ever before. The numbers tell the story. — Nhan Huynh
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