The politics of Vietnam is dominated by a single party under an authoritarian system, the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV). The President of Vietnam is the head of state, and the Prime Minister of Vietnam is the head of government, both of these 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, thus the General Secretary is the de facto supreme leader of Vietnam. Executive power is exercised by the government and the President of Vietnam. Legislative power is vested in the National Assembly of Vietnam. The Judiciary is independent of the executive. The parliament adopted the current Constitution of Vietnam, its fifth, on 28 November 2013.

The Vietnamese Fatherland Front is an umbrella group of mass movements in Vietnam aligned with the Communist Party of Vietnam forming the Vietnamese government. It was founded in February 1977 by the merger of the Vietnamese Fatherland Front of North Vietnam and two Viet Cong groups, the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam and the Alliance of National, Democratic, and Peace Forces. It is an amalgamation of many smaller groups, including the Communist Party itself. Other groups that participated in the establishment of the Front were the Vietnam General Confederation of Labour, the Ho Chi Minh Communist Youth Union 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. It also incorporates some officially sanctioned religious groups.