National Assembly of Vietnam in the context of "Socialist Republic of Vietnam"

Nguyễn Phú Trọng (Vietnamese: [ŋwiən˦ˀ˥ fu˧˦ t͡ɕawŋ͡m˧˨ʔ] new-yen foo chong; 14 April 1944 – 19 July 2024) was a Vietnamese politician and political theorist who served as general secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam from 2011 until his death in 2024. As the head of the party's Secretariat, Politburo and Central Military Commission, Trọng was Vietnam's paramount leader. From 2018 to 2021, he also served concurrently as the tenth president of Vietnam.

A conservative Marxist–Leninist, Trọng joined the Communist Party of Vietnam in 1967 and rose through the section devoted to political work. He later joined the party's Central Committee in 1994, its Politburo in 1997 and Vietnam's National Assembly in 2002. Between 2000 and 2006, he was the Party Secretary for Hanoi, effectively the city's highest-ranking position. He served as Chairman of the National Assembly from 2006 to 2011.

The politics of Vietnam is dominated by a single party, the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV), under an authoritarian system. The President of Vietnam (Vietnamese: Chủ tịch nước) is the head of state, and the Prime Minister of Vietnam is the head of government. Both of these offices are separate from the General Secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam, who leads the CPV and is head of the Politburo and the Central Military Commission. The General Secretary is thus the de facto highest position in the Vietnamese politics.

Executive power is exercised by the government and the President of Vietnam. Legislative power is vested in the National Assembly of Vietnam (Quốc hội Việt Nam). The Judiciary is independent of the executive. The parliament adopted the current Constitution of Vietnam, the country's fifth, on 28 November 2013.

This is a list of cities in Vietnam, defined by law as 'centrally governed cities' (thành phố trực thuộc trung ương), as of 30 August 2025. The list consists of places that have been granted city status by resolution of the National Assembly of Vietnam.

The Government of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (Vietnamese: Chính phủ nước Cộng hòa xã hội chủ nghĩa Việt Nam) is the state's highest administrative and executive organ of the country's highest organ of state power, the National Assembly of Vietnam, and in practice the central executive component and cabinet of Vietnam. The members of the Government are appointed by the President of Vietnam on the advice of the Prime Minister of Vietnam and approved by the National Assembly. The Government is led by the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV), which is headed by the CPV general secretary, often seen as the extragovernmental but highest political post in Vietnam.

The current government is the Government of Phạm Minh Chính (also known as the Government of the 15th National Assembly), which was established in accordance with the 2013 Constitution of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. Throughout history, each state administration of Vietnam had developed its own government cabinet under various formations and natures.

The Vietnam Fatherland Front (VFF, alternatively Vietnamese Fatherland Front; Vietnamese: Mặt trận Tổ quốc Việt Nam) is constitutionally an integral component in the political structure of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam and an umbrella group of mass movements and political coalition aligned with the Communist Party of Vietnam that dominates the National Assembly of Vietnam, forming the Government of Vietnam and all recognised national socio-political organisations.

It was founded in February 1977 by the merger of the Vietnam Fatherland Front of North Vietnam and the two so-called "Viet Cong" popular fronts, the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam and the Alliance of National, Democratic and Peace Forces, in South Vietnam. It is considered the modern incarnation of the League for the Independence of Vietnam (Viet Minh). It is an amalgamation of many smaller groups, including the Communist Party itself. Other groups that participated in the establishment of the Front are the Vietnam General Confederation of Labour, the Ho Chi Minh Communist Youth Union (a.k.a. the Ho Chi Minh Youth) and the Ho Chi Minh Young Pioneer Organization. It also included the Democratic Party of Vietnam and Socialist Party of Vietnam, until they disbanded in 1988.

The Constitution of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (Vietnamese: Hiến pháp nước Cộng hòa xã hội chủ nghĩa Việt Nam) is the communist state constitution of Vietnam. It functions as the fundamental and supreme law of the state. The current constitution, commonly known as the 2013 Constitution (Hiến pháp năm 2013), was adopted on November 28, 2013, by the 13th National Assembly of Vietnam and took effect on January 1, 2014, being the third constitution adopted by the Vietnamese state since the political reunification of the country in 1976. It was amended in 2025.

The 12th Politburo, formally the Political Bureau of the 12th Central Committee of the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV, Vietnamese: Bộ Chính trị Ban Chấp hành trung ương Đảng Cộng sản Việt Nam Khoá XII), was elected at the 1st Plenary Session of the 12th Central Committee (CC) on 27 January 2016 during the 12th National Congress to serve for a five-year electoral term. The Politburo is a central leading organ of the CPV Central Committee tasked with directing the general orientation of the party and state. In this sense, it functions as the highest political organ of the CPV when the Party's National Congress and the Central Committee are adjourned. Since Vietnam is a communist state that bases its governance system on the principle that "the Party leads and the State manages", the Politburo also function as the highest decision-making institution in Vietnam. The Politburo convenes meetings several times a month to discuss and decide policy, and the Secretariat, another central leading organ, ensures that said policies are executed by the relevant institution in question, such as the National Assembly of Vietnam if the policy concerns law-making, or the Party's Central Organisation Commission if it concerns cadre policy. The total number of meetings the 12th Politburo convened has not been publicly disclosed to the media. Some have been publicly reported, however, and are listed below (see "Convocations" section).

The 12th National Congress adopted a resolution that stated the CPV needed to establish a streamlined, efficient political system and combat corruption, waste, and bureaucracy. Shortly after his re-election to the Politburo and as General Secretary of the Central Committee on 27 January 2016, Nguyễn Phú Trọng ramped up his anti-corruption campaign. Đinh La Thăng was removed from the Politburo in May 2017 by the 12th CC's 5th Plenary Session when the 12th Central Inspection Commission started investigating him for mismanaging the state-owned enterprise PetroVietnam, resulting in a loss of 900 billion Vietnamese dongs (around 40 million United States dollars); he was arrested in December 2017 and sentenced to thirteen years in prison in January 2018. In tandem with the anti-corruption drive, Prime Minister Nguyễn Xuân Phúc began to streamline the government by cutting the number of deputy prime ministers from five to four and ministries from 26 to 22. Institutionally, the campaign was strengthened by appointing six members of the 12th Politburo to serve in the Central Steering Committee on Anti-corruption, providing the Central Inspection Commission with the ability to audit and supervise personnel property declarations under the Politburo and Secretariat's management, and seven central inspection teams were established to investigate serious corruption cases that drew public attention. This campaign developed alongside a campaign to strengthen party morality and Marxist–Leninist ideology and to combat perceived ideological evils such as liberal democratic values, self-evolution and self-transformation.

The five pillars (Vietnamese: bộ ngũ, pronounced [tɨ˧˦ t͡ɕu˧˨ʔ]; or ngũ trụ), previously the four pillars (tứ trụ), is an informal term for the five most important party-state leaders in the Communist Party of Vietnam and the Government of Vietnam. In modern usage, the five pillars refer to the General Secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam, President of Vietnam, Prime Minister of Vietnam, Chairman of the National Assembly of Vietnam, and the Permanent Member of the Secretariat. Together, they are officially designated as the "Key Leaders of the Party and the State" (Vietnamese: Lãnh đạo chủ chốt của Đảng và Nhà nước) and can be considered as the de facto highest state leaders. Similar to China, there does not exist an official order of precedence for political leaders and rather they are inferred in a de facto fashion. However, since the chairmanship of the Communist Party was abolished, the General Secretary has been the highest ranking official in Vietnam. This division of power is formed to prevent dictatorial rule and preserve consensus-based leadership, which is officially called by the Vietnamese Communist Party as "democratic centralism". In 2025, the seat of Permanent Member of the Secretariat of CPV was designated as the fifth "key leader", virtually becoming the fifth pillar of the Vietnamese politics.

Unlike other communist states, the General Secretary of the party (or its predecessor) and the President of the state are largely occupied not by the same person, demonstrating the collective leadership in Vietnam. The only exceptions are: Hồ Chí Minh (1951–69), Trường Chinh (briefly in 1986), Nguyễn Phú Trọng (2018–21), and Tô Lâm (briefly in 2024), and except Hồ Chí Minh, all of those exceptions were practically elected to fulfill their successors' uncompleted terms of party general secretaryship or state presidency. Thus, the Party General Secretaries rarely hold offices that are nominally within the Vietnamese state apparatus and government except their parliament memberships, however is still managed to be the practical highest leader in the politics of Vietnam and is ideologically the highest commander of the People's Army of Vietnam, due to the ex officio occupation of the Secretaryship of the Party Central Military Commission.

The president of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (Vietnamese: Chủ tịch nước Cộng hoà xã hội chủ nghĩa Việt Nam) is the head of state of Vietnam, elected by the National Assembly of Vietnam from its delegates. Since Vietnam is a one-party state, candidates for the post are nominated by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Vietnam. The officeholder is generally considered to hold the second-highest position in the political system, practically after the general secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam. As head of state, the president represents Vietnam both domestically and internationally, and maintains the regular and coordinated operation and stability of the national government and safeguards the independence and territorial integrity of the country.

The president must be a member of the National Assembly. In addition, the president has traditionally been a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party and a member of the Politburo. The Central Committee of the Communist Party nominates candidates to the Standing Committee of the National Assembly, which then confirms and nominates those candidates for official election by all delegates of the National Assembly.