On March 18, the Vietnam Fatherland Front Committee of HCM City held the second consultation conference and announced the preliminary list of candidates who will run for the 15th National Assembly election and the HCM City People's Council election of the term of 2021-2026.

Delegates voted in favor of approving the preliminary list of candidates for the upcoming National Assembly election at the second consultation conference.

Vice Chairman of the Vietnam Fatherland Front Committee of Ho Chi Minh City, Nguyen Thanh Trung, said that 33 agencies and organizations had introduced 36 candidates for the upcoming National Assembly election in the first consultation conference, including: 2 key officials of HCM City; 2 full-time representatives; 11 representatives of the Fatherland Front and political and social organizations; 2 candidates from the armed forces of the city; 2 representatives from the local judicial agency; 4 representatives in the fields of science and technology, education-training, healthcare; 9 representatives of research institutes, universities, students; 3 candidates of businesses and business associations; and one religious representative.

All of the introduced candidates received confidence votes of 90% or more.

Mr. Trung said that on March 16, the agency received 52 dossiers of candidates for the 15th National Assembly election. However, the next day, one withdrew. There are currently 51 candidates, including 36 nominated and 15 self-nominated candidates.

In terms of structure of candidates, 16/51 are women; 16 people are non-Party members; 8 people are under 40 years old; 8 people are representatives of the ethnic minority groups and religious followers; 15 people are re-elected; and 15 people are self-nominated.

At the second consultation conference, 100% of the delegates voted in favor of approving the preliminary list of candidates for the 15th National Assembly election.

The preliminary list has Mr. Nguyen Thien Nhan, former Politburo member, former Party Secretary of HCM City, and head of the HCM City National Assembly delegation.

Meanwhile, HCM City Party Committee Secretary Nguyen Van Nen and HCM City People's Committee Chairman Nguyen Thanh Phong will not run for the 15th National Assembly election.

They were also unanimous in voting in favour of the list of deputies to the municipal People’s Council for the 2021-2026 tenure, with 172 nominations, including 23 non-Party members, 58 women, 29 under 40, 15 ethnic minorities, 51 seeking re-election, and 13 self-nominated. Some 99 percent of candidates have completed graduate or post-graduate studies.

President of the city’s Fatherland Front To Thi Bich Chau said that from March 21 to April 13, the front’s standing committee will organise a conference to determine whether NA candidates have the confidence of voters in their residential area and whether People’s Council candidates have the confidence of voters in their places of work.

A third consultative conference is scheduled for April 17.

According to the allocation from the NA Standing Committee, HCM City is to elect 30 deputies to the 15th NA and 95 deputies to the municpal People’s Council.

The elections are set to take place on May 23.

Ho Van

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