Lao election officials have announced the results of National Assembly elections, saying a number of younger and better educated people will join the legislature for its new five-year term.Election officials said 42 of the 132 members of the new assembly hold central government positions, while 90 are local authority officials. They said fewer central committee members were listed as candidates this year in order to create more distance between the legislature and the executive.
The new body will convene in June to approve a new president, vice president, prime minister and Cabinet. They are expected to follow the recommendations of the politburo of the ruling party's central committee. The election officials said the turnout in the single-party April 30 election was 99.6 percent. Roughly half the population was eligible to vote. The commission said it took 10 days to count the vote because of heavy rains that delayed the transport of ballot boxes from remote locations.