[Peace-discuss] U.S. Encouraged by Vietnam Vote (fwd)

[C. G. Estabrook]

	U.S. Encouraged by Vietnam Vote:
	Officials Cite 83% Turnout Despite Vietcong Terror
	by Peter Grose, Special to the New York Times (9/4/1967: p. 2)

WASHINGTON, Sept. 3, 1967-- United States officials were surprised and
heartened today at the size of turnout in South Vietnam's presidential
election despite a Vietcong terrorist campaign to disrupt the voting.

According to reports from Saigon, 83 per cent of the 5.85 million
registered voters cast their ballots yesterday. Many of them risked
reprisals threatened by the Vietcong.

The size of the popular vote and the inability of the Vietcong to destroy
the election machinery were the two salient facts in a preliminary
assessment of the nation election based on the incomplete returns reaching
here.

Pending more detailed reports, neither the State Department nor the White
House would comment on the balloting or the victory of the military
candidates, Lieut. Gen. Nguyen Van Thieu, who was running for president,
and Premier Nguyen Cao Ky, the candidate for vice president.

A successful election has long been seen as the keystone in President
Johnson's policy of encouraging the growth of constitutional processes in
South Vietnam. The election was the culmination of a constitutional
development that began in January, 1966, to which President Johnson gave
his personal commitment when he met Premier Ky and General Thieu, the
chief of state, in Honolulu in February.

The purpose of the voting was to give legitimacy to the Saigon Government,
which has been founded only on coups and power plays since November, 1963,
when President Ngo Dinh Deim was overthrown by a military junta.

Few members of that junta are still around, most having been ousted or
exiled in subsequent shifts of power.

Significance Not Diminished

The fact that the backing of the electorate has gone to the generals who
have been ruling South Vietnam for the last two years does not, in the
Administration's view, diminish the significance of the constitutional
step that has been taken.

The hope here is that the new government will be able to maneuver with a
confidence and legitimacy long lacking in South Vietnamese politics. That
hope could have been dashed either by a small turnout, indicating
widespread scorn or a lack of interest in constitutional development, or
by the Vietcong's disruption of the balloting.

[More at <http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/1/31/2335/87390>.]