The 13th National Assembly (NA) Standing Committee concluded its 47th session yesterday morning after one and a half days working on a wide range of issues. — VNA/VNS Photo Trọng Đúc

Viet Nam News -HÀ NỘI — The National Election Council (NEC) yesterday released the shortlist of candidates running for the National Assembly (NA) in the upcoming election next month.

There are a total of 870 candidates – those who survived three rounds of consultative conferences. The public will vote for them in 184 election units across the country. Five hundred will become the new members of the 14th NA after the big day on May 22.

Hà Nội and HCM City have the biggest numbers of candidates – 50 – as well as the highest NA member quotas of 30 each.

Eleven self-nominated candidates were approved for the short list - a small percentage of those who started to run before the consultative conferences. 

Reports from the NA Standing Committee in late March show that 162 people nominated themselves for this year’s election. More than 93 per cent of independent candidates failed to get through to the final list.

There were 339 female candidates, accounting for nearly 40 per cent of the total number. Twenty-three per cent, or 204, were from ethnic minority groups.

Ninety-seven candidates, or 11 per cent, are not members of the Communist Party of Việt Nam, the country’s only recognised party.

The election committees in each locality today will start taking in and looking into any complaints filed about their candidates, said the NEC Chief of Staff Nguyễn Hạnh Phúc in a press conference yesterday.

“Any complaints that failed to be solved by local election committees will be submitted to the National Election Committee,” he said.

The complaint processes will continue until May 10.

NA committee session comes to an end

The 13th National Assembly (NA) Standing Committee concluded its 47th session yesterday morning after one and a half days working on a wide range of issues.
In the closing speech, NA Chairwoman Nguyễn Thị Kim Ngân said the committee assessed the outcomes of the 11th and the last sessions of the 13th NA, gave opinions on preparations for the 14th parliament’s first session, and approved a resolution on benefits and conditions to ensure the activities of People’s Council deputies.
The Standing Committee scrutinised the proposals, submitted by the Chief Justice of the Supreme People’s Court, relating to judges’ uniforms and identification cards; salaries and benefits for court staff members; and the numbers of judges at the high, middle and primary-ranking levels.
It discussed the proposal for appointing Vietnamese ambassadors to some countries for the 2016-2019 term, and draft resolutions on the classification of administrative divisions and cities.
Before the session finished, draft resolutions on the classification of administrative divisions and cities were under consideration.
The Government report says the draft resolution on administrative divisions institutionalises the Party’s viewpoint. It precisely stipulates the conditions and criteria for establishing, dissolving and merging administrative divisions. The regulations encourage the merger of communal-level divisions.
Meanwhile, the draft resolution on city classification prescribes classification criteria and procedures, the responsibility of central and local agencies in the work, and others, the Government noted.
The NA Committee for Legal Affairs asked the drafting board to carefully prescribe statistical requirements to ensure the resolutions’ feasibility.
NA Vice Chairman Uong Chu Luu requested that the construction and home affairs ministries, the Committee for Legal Affairs and relevant agencies fine-tune the drafts before they are submitted to the NA Standing Committee for approval. — VNS