>This election is really not much......its to pick the people who will determine the nature of the Iraqi constitution.
Steppin' into the Wayback machine...
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-- 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.
American officials had hoped for an 80 per cent turnout. That was the
figure in the election in September for the Constituent
Assembly. Seventy-eight per cent of the registered voters went to the
polls in elections for local officials last spring.
Before the results of the presidential election started to come in, the
American officials warned that the turnout might be less than 80 per cent
because the polling place would be open for two or three hours less than in
the election a year ago. The turnout of 83 per cent was a welcome
surprise. The turnout in the 1964 United States Presidential election was
62 per cent.
Captured documents and interrogations indicated in the last week a serious
concern among Vietcong leaders that a major effort would be required to
render the election meaningless. This effort has not succeeded, judging
from the reports from Saigon.
NYT. 9/4/1967: p. 2.
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