Vu Mao, former chairman of the National Assembly Office, is in an interview with Lao Dong newspaper in an undated photo. He was a key architect behind the first live television broadcast of a National Assembly session in mid-1994 – PHOTO: LDO
 

 

The Central Board for Care and Protection of the Health of Senior Officials said in a statement that due to his old age and frail health, the retired official died of an acute illness.

Born in December 1939 in Hanoi, Mao was the first secretary of the Central Committee of the Ho Chi Minh Communist Youth Union between 1982 and 1987.

He was the chairman of the NA Committee for Youth, Adolescents and Children from July 1987 to June 1988. Later, he was the chairman of the NA Office and the State Council until July 1992.

Afterwards, he still worked as the chairman of the NA Office until July 2002 before serving as the chairman of the NA’s Committee of External Affairs until July 2007.

Between 1992 and 2007, he was a NA deputy and a member of the NA Standing Committee.

He was a key assistant of the then-NA chairman Nguyen Van An in innovating the NA’s activities, including live broadcasts of NA sessions, vote by machine, and parliamentary diplomacy.

The senior official was quoted the news website VnExpress as saying that “I had gambled with my political career to convince NA leaders of live broadcast of the NA’s important sessions.”

It was in 1994 that the NA Office set up the live broadcast project, but “faced many obstacles” because of its “unprecedented” nature.

“At the 5th session of the 9th National Assembly in mid-1994, a question-and-answer session would take place the following day, and the television broadcast was carefully prepared. We had announced the people (about this,) but even then there remained obstacles,” he said.

Therefore, he met with then-NA Chairman Nong Duc Manh and then-Deputy Prime Minister Phan Van Khai at noon that day to persuade them of the live broadcast the following day. “I said I would take the responsibility,” Mao was quoted as saying.

In the eyes of the press, he was a politician who was open-minded, willing to give interviews, and enhanced the transparency of the NA’s activities.

He was also a poet and musician who wrote songs about the activities of the legislative body, Vietnam and its people.

He retired from public life on January 2008. SGT