I thought it would be worth mentioning that this past May 20th, Vietnam held elections for it’s 12th National Assembly. Despite Article 4 of the Constitution dictating that the Communist Party shall be the only party in power, non-party members were allowed to nominate themselves to run for office in the national assembly (in this as well as previous elections.) This time around, 238 people self-nominated themselves (meaning they were not endorsed by the Communist Party), but after a three-round vetting process, only 30 non-communist candidates were deemed “fit” to run. While the election results were not declared well until a week after the May 20th election, it was immediately reported however, that over 99% of the Vietnamese people voted. When the results were declared, only 1 of the 30 non-communist candidates were elected, out of a 500 seat National Assembly. —Lan Nguyen