The Making of the President

SOUTH Viet Nam President Nguyen Van Thieu took no chances on the outcome of this week's one-man presidential election. To ensure that the voting would be undisturbed by demonstrators or the Viet Cong, he ordered soldiers, police and armed recruits of the Popular Self-Defense Force to patrol the streets and shoot to kill if necessary. As voters went to the polls, whole blocks of Saigon were barricaded or strung with barbed wire. Thieu also refrained from setting his sights too high; he declared that an even 50% of the vote would give him sufficient mandate for another four-year term.

There seemed hardly any chance, barring massive miscalculation, that he could miss so easy a mark. Not only was Thieu unopposed, but he also had sole control of the election machinery, and his poll watchers were the only ones on hand to observe what the officials he had appointed were up to. On top of all that, casting a vote of nonconfidence in Thieu's "Democracy Slate" was not an easy matter. Province chiefs and mayors designated the sites of the polling places, for example; in last month's elections for the Lower House, they located the polls at convenient sites in pro-Thieu regions--but a good long walk from the nearest village in anti-government areas.

Total Control. Since the law offered no provisions for casting a no vote in a one-way contest, Thieu advised voters that they could mutilate their ballots or put empty envelopes in the ballot box to express their rejection of him. But voters who might want to do as Thieu suggested were required to drop the unused ballot on the floor, an action that could easily be observed--and remembered--by Thieu-appointed officials.

Unable to force postponement of the election, opposition groups settled instead for a boycott--a rather futile move, since the government could announce almost any turnout that it thought appropriate. Thieu's nearly total control of the situation was evident when the frustrated and factious anti-government forces met last week to try to organize a broadly based opposition. They managed only to form a loose committee and named as its chairman General Duong Van ("Big") Minh, who dropped out of the presidential election last month charging that the vote was rigged in advance. Minh did not even bother to attend last week's meeting.

"People's Force." A second meeting, called by Vice President Nguyen Cao Ky, gathered in downtown Saigon under the name of "The Congress of the People's Force Against Dictatorship." As soldiers armed with M-16s and grenade launchers stationed themselves near by, one after another of the speakers denounced Thieu and the "unconstitutional, undemocratic and illegal election." Ky arrived surrounded by M-16-packing airmen. Said he: "I ask the people not to participate in the election, not to go to the polls, not to accept the results of the election."

In Hue, students and disabled veterans staged several large demonstrations, burned Thieu posters, and hurled Molotov cocktails at the police. At one point, more than a thousand students on the old city side of the Perfume River struggled to link up with 200 others on the Hue University side. Combat police used tear gas and repeated bursts from their M-16s to break up the demonstration.

Heating up South Viet Nam's election fever may also have been one motive for heavy North Vietnamese attacks last week against ARVN forces guarding the Cambodian-South Viet Nam border. Despite daily raids by U.S. B-52 bombers against North Vietnamese positions in eastern Cambodia, the South Vietnamese reported heavy casualties. (At week's end, Soviet President Nikolai V. Podgorny, heading a high-ranking delegation, flew into Hanoi in an effort by the Russians to reassure Hanoi of continued support, despite any detente between Washington and Peking.)

Little Choice. Winding up his campaign, Thieu last week appeared on television to review his accomplishments. Said Thieu: "We have not only thwarted a Communist military victory, but we have also obtained many encouraging results in the building of democracy and improvement of society." Thieu's platform, in short, was his own version of peace and prosperity--a version that South Viet Nam's voters, whether so inclined or not, had little choice but to endorse.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.