Vietnamese vote for new National Assembly

HANOI, May 20 (Reuters) Vietnamese went to the polls today to elect delegates to the National Assembly, or parliament, the body which has been driving economic and legal reforms in the Communist-ruled, one-party state.

The 875 candidates for 500 seats include 150 who are not Communist Party members, but have party approval to run.

Delegates serve for five years.

The incoming parliament will be the first in an era of international economic integration for the impoverished country of 85 million following its admission to the World Trade Organisation in January.

In three weeks of campaigning, street loudspeakers in the capital, Hanoi, and elsewhere blared announcements encouraging citizens to vote. Polling stations are decked in red bunting.

Voting booths are open for 12 hours on Sunday and results will be announced within 15 days.

Local and provincial interests dominate the assembly and the selection of delegates.

Electoral law calls for all seats in 182 constituencies to be contested, but in practice, many are not.

Western governments criticised Hanoi for a series of trials and jail terms this month of activists calling for a multiparty system. The government said the defendants had broken the law by ''spreading propaganda against the state''.

Charges against two activist lawyers who were jailed for up to five years included incitement to disrupt the election.

The National Assembly is no longer viewed as purely a rubber stamp for the Party. Delegates question ministers and scrutinise policy more than they did in the past.

One delegate who is standing for re-election said he expected younger and better-educated people to enter the new assembly.

''I think the most important thing now is to build a democratic foundation which is suitable with Vietnam's context,'' Duong Trung Quoc, a historian and parliamentarian, said in an interview with Reuters TV.

''It seems that opinions vary on the speed, on the roadmap of this democratisation process.'' Reuters KK VP0705