1967 Election Pamphlet Collection

South Vietnam’s 1967 Elections

The assassination of President Ngô Đình Diệm by a United States-backed junta ushered in a period of sustained political chaos in South Vietnam.  Subsequent military infighting produced a wave of coups and coup attempts, while a procession of weak civilian governments struggled to restore stability.  Buddhists, Catholics, and student groups clashed on city streets, and communist forces capitalized on the disorder by expanding their control over the countryside.  Finally, a massive 1966 Buddhist uprising – the second in three years – forced Saigon’s unpopular military regime to relent by promising political reforms, a response to mounting domestic and American dissatisfaction.

After crushing the insurgent Buddhists in a show of force, the military acceded to popular demands for a new constitution, followed by nationwide elections for President and a restored bicameral legislature.  First, a nationwide vote was held in 1966 to elect a Constitutional Assembly, tasked with drafting the constitution and laws regulating the forthcoming elections. Veteran CIA operative Edward Lansdale was redeployed to monitor the proceedings, accompanied by team of advisers helmed by constitutional scholar Gisbert H. Flanz.  And behind the scenes, the military lavished funds from the CIA and from its own drug-trafficking to secure a loyal bloc in the Assembly.  Bolstered by tacit U.S. support for indefinite military rule, the generals rammed through a series of advantageous electoral provisions, dividing the civilian field and forestalling widespread desire for a run-off ballot.  Still, the Constitutional Assembly debates were no mere pro forma exercise, and at times, opposition delegates transcended partisan quarreling to secure concessions of their own.

With the Election Law and constitution ratified by the spring of 1967, political observers turned their attention to the upcoming vote.  From the outset, leading rival generals Nguyễn Cao Kỳ and Nguyễn Văn Thiệu resorted to fraud, intimidation, harassment, and press censorship, hoping to surreptitiously marginalize both the civilian competition and each other.  Their feud threatened to disrupt the entire exercise, prompting other military top brass to impose a joint Thiệu-Kỳ candidacy - an outcome which the United States Embassy, hoping for a civilian figurehead, regarded as “a disaster.”  Anti-communist civilians, meanwhile, grew incensed by the military’s underhandedness and infighting, and embarrassed by the overseas media criticism it attracted.

But then the campaign formally began, and with it came a host of political novelties in Vietnam, from nationwide barnstorming stump speeches to subsidized radio and television airtime for all thirteen approved presidential candidates.  Resigned to inevitable military victory, but eager to secure a more transparent and responsive regime, the civilian opposition capitalized on the opportunity to deliver unflinching critiques of South Vietnamese politics and society.  And though military patronage and administrative machinations ultimately carried the day, an unexpectedly narrow victory of just 34% reflected the contest’s relative propriety, especially in heavily-scrutinized urban centres.  Still more surprising was the second place showing for Trương Đình Dzu, an obscure lawyer whose call for immediate peace resonated with war weary voters.  Meanwhile, Buddhist disaffection allowed the militant northern Catholic minority to triumph in the Lower House and Senate elections.  Determined not to repeat the error, the Buddhist lay hierarchy embraced legislative elections in the years to come, a critical if overlooked factor in prolonging the state’s survival.  Though far less transparent than Vietnamese observers had hoped, the elections nonetheless brought a temporary end to the years of chaos, and provided a critical structure for anti-communists to rally around after the following year’s brutal communist Tet Offensive.

The Australia National University Election Leaflet Collection

The Presidential/Vice-Presidential Election

The 3 September 1967 election for President/Vice-President featured thirteen approved contestant pairs (leaflets for ten of which are available here).  To assist illiterate citizens, each candidate pair chose a logo, including, for example, a sheaf of rice, an ancestral altar, or a buffalo.  The eventual winners, Nguyễn Văn Thiệu and Nguyễn Cao Kỳ, illustrated their ticket using the S-shaped map of Vietnam set against three horizontal stripes.  Runners-up Trương Đình Dzu and Trần Văn Chiêu provocatively featured a white dove and the slogan “Peace” (Hòa bình).  Thiệu and Kỳ won with 34.8% of the vote, while Dzu and Chiệu placed second with 17.2%.  The total vote turnout was estimated at 4.8 million citizens, representing over 83% of registered voters.  But given that roughly twice that number of citizens remained unregistered, the result remained ambiguous.

The Upper House (Senate) Election

48 candidate slates each comprised of ten individuals stood for election to the Upper House.  Each slate chose an icon (e.g. a bell, an elephant, a flying horse, a flaming torch, a handshake, a farmer harvesting rice, or acoconut tree) to help voters distinguish them. Voters were permitted to select six of the 48 registered slates, forming an Upper House of 60 total members.  The Farmer-Worker-Soldier Slate, headed by retired General Trần Văn Đôn, received the highest number of votes, an estimated 4.5% of the total votes cast.  The five other winning slates obtained between 2.9% and 2.5% of the vote, leaving the losing 42 slates to share 82.2%. Registered voter turnout was estimated at 83%.

A separate election for the Lower House (House of Representatives) was held the following month on 22 October 1967.  Turnout for this election was noticeably lower, at just under 73% of registered voters.

Though English-language scholarship has long neglected or dismissed the 1967 elections, they were important to the wider struggle for political legitimacy in South Vietnam.  Researchers will find that the materials featured here reveal non-communist South Vietnam’s remarkable political diversity, and hint at the ideals which attracted Vietnamese constituents to the republican side.  This collection is likely of interest to scholars of modern Vietnamese history, to descendants of the featured politicians, and to anyone with an interest in the Vietnam War.      

Sean Fear

University of Leeds

David Marr

Australia National University