A high-ranking police official has been elected chairman of the Hanoi administration after winning a majority of votes in an election where he was the only candidate.

Major General Nguyen Duc Chung, director of the Hanoi Police Department, received a 94.56 percent approval rating as 89 out of 92 members of the municipal People’s Council cast their vote on Friday morning.

Chung, the commander of all police forces in Hanoi, will replace Nguyen The Thao as chairman of the People’s Committee of the Vietnamese capital.

Thao, who was supposed to keep the position for the 2011-16 term, asked to resign in late November, prompting the People’s Council to prepare an election to fill in the vacancy.

The local Party Committee then nominated Chung as the only candidate for the council to elect him to the seat.

Thao graduated as an architect and holds a PhD in economics.

Chung, who is also the deputy secretary of the Hanoi Party Committee, is the sole shortlisted candidate for the voting, according to the council.

The newly-elected Hanoi chairman was born in 1967 in Hai Duong Province, some 60km from Hanoi.

A doctor of philosophy in law, Chung was appointed deputy head of Hanoi police in September 2010, and promoted to the director position two years later.

He was named major general in July 2013.

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