VN National Assembly keeps chairman, mulls cabinet reshuffle

The vote to keep on Trong, who was selected as the Communist Party's choice for parliamentary leader last year and later confirmed by the Assembly, was approved by 97.97 per cent of the 500-member lawmaking body, according to spokesman Ngo Duc Manh.

The 12th National Assembly, elected in one-party nationwide polls in May, also selected four deputy chairmen.

Trong vowed to further improve the National Assembly's legislative and monitoring capability and make the bureaucracy more efficient.

The Assembly is scheduled to vote on the country's top leaders - widely expected to stay the same with Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung and President Nguyen Minh Triet staying on - and also to consider a proposal by the party to streamline the cabinet, cutting the number of ministries from 29 to 22 but adding more deputy prime ministers and promoting younger officials.

Once seen as a rubber-stamp for the Communist Party Politburo, the National Assembly in recent years has taken tentative steps toward becoming a forum for debate and criticism of government officials.

However, the parliament rarely contradicts Vietnam's sole legal political party on major issues. //(Deutsche Presse-Agentur/DPA)