HANOI — Tens of millions of Vietnamese go to the polls on Sunday (March 15) to elect 500 members of the National Assembly from a list of candidates almost exclusively fielded by the ruling Communist Party.

The five-yearly elections, in which nearly 73.5 million registered voters will also choose representatives for local councils, are one of the few nods to democratic practice in the tightly controlled one-party state, where the most powerful positions are decided by Communist senior officials ahead of the vote.