"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 Diem 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.

"Of course, although this is amusing, the parallel is only partial. Some parallels: * The NLF was not allowed to compete in those elections. Similarly, there really isn't a group representing the resistance. In the case of South Vietnam, it's likely the NLF would have won a substantial victory in free elections (and had elections been held in Vietnam in 1956, as mandated by the Geneva Accords of 1954, the Vietminh would have won an overwhelming victory). Although the vast majority of Iraqis opposes the occupation, it's not clear how much of the vote a party representing the resistance would win. * Nguyen Van Thieu and Nguyen Cao Ky, the people who were "elected," had already taken power in a coup and were running a military dictatorship fully backed by and collaborating with the U.S. forces in South Vietnam. Ayad Allawi was picked by U.S. proconsul Paul Bremer to be the dictator of Iraq until the elections and all other major politicians who will get any substantial portion of the vote, including those from SCIRI, Dawa, the KDP, and the PUK, were also picked by the United States to serve on the Governing Council and have been supported by and collaborating with U.S. occupying forces ever since. Now, those South Vietnamese elections so hailed by the U.S. press were an absolute sham. Thieu and Ky made sure the vote count came out the way they wanted. Official figures had no connection with actual votes. The country was under a brutal counterinsurgency carried out by the Thieu-Ky regime and U.S. forces. Nobody else with an actual constituency could run. They were as farcical as any elections you could imagine.