Newsgroups: bit.listserv.seasia-l
Date:         Mon, 21 Dec 1992 10:42:41 -0500
From:         Nhan Tran <tran@PEORA.SDC.CCUR.COM>
Subject:      LAOS: Laotians goes to polls

12/20

LAOS GOES TO POLLS UNDER NEW CONSTITUTION

    VIENTIANE, Dec 20, Reuter - Laotians voted on Sunday in single-party
National Assembly elections that may produce more women and minority deputies,
but leaders said there would be no radical change in direction.
    The elections are the first to be held in Laos under the ruling Lao
People's Revolutionary Party's (LPRP) first constitution approved last year.
    Voters lined up at polling stations from early morning and the organising
committee said the results would be announced on December 30.
    At least two candidates were contesting each of the 85 parliamentary seats,
but all those standing have been vetted by the LPRP, which has tolerated no
challenge to its rule since it came to power in 1975 at the end of the
Indochina War.
    On Thursday, official Radio Vientiane announced that three former
government officials, two of whom were vice ministers, had been sentenced to
14-year jail terms for trying to overthrow the LPRP before their arrest in
October 1990.
    In a separate case also announced on Thursday, three military officers of
the previous Royalist government  -- already held without trial since 1975 --
were given life sentences for murder and other crimes.
    Newly appointed President Nouhak Phoumsavan cast his vote at a Vientiane
polling station in the morning.
    "We do no expect very much change from the election because the major
policy and been laid by the party and all the candidates have similar
ideology," he told reporters.
    Prime Minister and party chief Khamtay Siphandone echoed this.
    "Even if there is no dramatic change from today's election it is very
important since it demonstrates the unity and equality of the Lao people," he
said.
    Western sources who travelled to the provinces in the past week said there
appeared to be little interest in the election, despite the posting of
candidates pictures and biographies in even the smallest and most remote
villages.
    They said more women candidates and ethnic minority representatives were
standing compared with the last election in 1988.
    A 29-year-old voter Phuthong Keawmoratkot said he thought the one-party
system was best for the Laotian people and that women were as capable as men in
administration.
    The delay in announcing the results was because of communications
difficulties with outlying provinces, diplomats said.
    Landlocked and underpopulated, Laos is one of poorest of the world's least
developed countries. However, diplomats say there has been steady improvement
in the economy since the relaxation of hardline communist policies on the late
1980s and the party's decision to open up to the free market.
    The election is expected to contribute to this process.
    Diplomats say the new National Assembly will be the first under the current
government to have a genuine legislative function. In the past it has existed
largely as a rubber-stamp body for LPDR decrees.
    The assembly is expected to get working quickly on three draft laws -- a
revised foreign investment code, a commerce law and an arbitration law -- that
should encourage foreign investment, diplomats said.
    Some investors have been wary of putting money into Laos because of a lack
of legal protection.
    Another function of the assembly will be to appoint a cabinet. Diplomats
said they expected that early next year more trained technocrats would be moved
into ministries to replace old revolutionaries, who owed their position to
their role in the war that brought the party to power.
    "They might have been good soldiers but some of them have not been great
ministers," one diplomat commented.
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