Vientiane Times Laos election is all in the party Published on Jan 15, 2002 Laos' ruling communist party faces no challenge in the coming general election as there is not one independent politician among the 166 candidates, who include the chairman of National Election Commission. The election on February 24 will bring in 109 new members from 18 constituencies to the National Assembly for its next five-year term. Ten more seats have been added to the assembly's current strength due to an increase in population. Among the 99 current legislators, only one is not a member of the ruling Lao People's Revolutionary Party. Although the election law allows non-members to contest, no independent politician has applied this time, an official at the assembly said. Thirty-five of the candidates are on the party's Central Committee, and two of these are members of the Politburo decision-making body - Assembly President Samane Viyaketh, who also heads the election commission, and Deputy Prime Minister and State Planning Minister Thongloun Sisoulith. The candidates are mostly well educated, with 104 of the 166 university graduates, an assembly member said. The term of the current legislature was to expire at the end of this year, but an early poll was called to give the new assembly enough time to draft laws to implement the five-year socio-economic plan endorsed by the party last March. Supalak Ganjanakhundee THE NATION _________________________________________________ KOMINFORM P.O. Box 66 00841 Helsinki Phone +358-40-7177941 Fax +358-9-7591081 http://www.kominf.pp.fi General class struggle news: [EMAIL PROTECTED] subscribe mails to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Geopolitical news: [EMAIL PROTECTED] subscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] __________________________________________________
