Vietnam - March 2026
Communist Party of Vietnam retains control in legislative elections
On 15 March, Vietnam held its legislative elections for all 500 seats in the National Assembly. The Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV), the country’s only legal political party, won 482 seats, while 18 seats went to non-party candidates vetted through the Viet Nam Fatherland Front, a CPV-led umbrella organization. According to the National Election Council, voter turnout reached 99.7 per cent, compared to 99.6 per cent in the 2021 election. Women won 150 of 500 seats (30.0 per cent), compared to 151 of 499 (30.3 per cent) in 2021. No opposition parties were permitted to contest, and no major international election observation mission reported on the election. On 7 April, the newly elected Assembly unanimously elected CPV General Secretary Tô Lâm as state president. The two posts have usually been held by different people, making his appointment a departure from the country’s traditional collective leadership. Analysts described it as the country’s greatest concentration of political power in decades.
Sources: IPU Parline, International IDEA, Reuters
