The Candidates Emerge

The first stage of South Viet Nam's nationwide elections, the polling to select village officials, is nearing an end. So far, despite Viet Cong terrorism aimed at disrupting the elections, about 81% of all the voters in polling areas have gone to the polls to cast their ballots into the red-and-yellow straw boxes. By the end of April, some 1,800,000 Vietnamese in 991 villages will have exercised this basic right of democracy for the first time. In June, another 400,000 Vietnamese will vote in hamlet elections.

The pattern of voting reflects the realities--and the hopes--of the war in Viet Nam (see map). No voting is being attempted in areas held by the Viet Cong or strongly influenced by the Communists. The provinces with the highest percentage of villages participating are naturally those areas strongly secured by Saigon and the U.S. Allied control and influence are greatest in the areas of largest population density in South Viet Nam. But with commendable caution, Saigon is holding elections only where the safety of the voters from reprisals can be reasonably assured. Thus only about half of the nation's citizenry in the countryside will vote this summer; but as Allied control and influence continue to grow, each newly secured area will join the march to the polls.

In the process of electing their own officials, the villages and hamlets will acquire a long-desired autonomy from Saigon. Villages, for example, will be able to retain some 40% of the taxes they collect, spend it on local public works. Since decades of nonparticipation as the pawns of arbitrary central government have given the villagers few skills to manage their own affairs, the Saigon government is providing winning village-council candidates with crash courses in the fundamentals of bookkeeping and governing.

Looks & Flamboyance. On a national scale, several candidates are also undergoing crash courses in the art of running for the presidency, for which the electorate will vote in September. The two chief prospective candidates, of course, are the two generals who now rule the country: Premier Nguyen Cao Ky and Chief of State Nguyen Van Thieu. Both want the presidency, but each wants it with the support of the other and without splitting the armed forces into two camps. Thieu, at 44, is older than Ky by eight years and undoubtedly commands more respect among his fellow officers. A Catholic, a Northerner and an immensely competent but unobtrusive man, Thieu admits that Ky for the moment has all the advantages. The very Ky qualities that sometimes rub the generals the wrong way are electorally appealing: Ky's flamboyance in dress and dashing manner, his pilot's lean good looks and his beautiful wife. Moreover, Ky has, as Premier, been able to seed some key posts in the government with powerful supporters, such as Brigadier General Nguyen Ngoc Loan, chief of security and the political police.

The jockeying between Ky and Thieu is likely to go on behind the scenes right up until the deadline for declaring; then, one will likely stand down and throw his support to the other in order to give the military candidate powerful backing. In the Byzantine world of Vietnamese politics, assuming that Ky gets the military nomination, his ultimate triumph at the polls is by no means a sure thing. His youth and the fact that he is a Northerner both work against him. Lately Saigon has been abuzz with rumors that Duong Van Minh, better known as Big Minh when he was Chief of State and commander in chief in 1963, might return from exile in Bangkok to enter the lists. The good-natured general headed the coup that overthrew Diem, but he would have to come home with the sufferance of the ruling generals, which is an unlikely prospect at the moment.

Automatic Underdog. The financial and power resources of the ruling Directory of generals make any civilian an automatic underdog. But with the world watching closely to see if the first free presidential election in South Viet Nam's history will really be democratic, a civilian with the will to fight could make a good run for it. Three civilian candidates have already thrown their hats into the ring. Phan Khac Suu, 62, onetime Chief of State and now speaker of the Constituent Assembly that framed the nation's new constitution, was the first to announce. A Southerner and something of a mystic, the white-haired Suu is agreeable to nearly everyone; he is so agreeable, in fact, that he is given little chance of being elected.

Another declared civilian is Nguyen Dinh Quat, 49, a Saigon businessman and former plantation owner, who in 1961 had the courage--or misjudgment --to run against President Ngo Dinh Diem. His reward was to be dispossessed of all his property by the Diem regime. A Northerner, Quat is now thought to be interested less in the presidency than in being chosen as a stronger candidate's vice-presidential running mate. The third civilian is Ha Thuc Ky, 48, a forestry engineer and Hue businessman nominated by the Dai Vet Party, a small, ultranationalist grouping. No relation to Premier Ky, he, like Quat, can best hope for the role of a running mate.

Yet undeclared but likely to run is ex-Prime Minister, ex-Saigon Mayor, ex-Schoolteacher Tran Van Huong, 63, who would almost certainly have the best chance of any civilian candidate.

Intelligent, tough and rigidly honest, a quality not much in currency among Vietnamese, Huong has announced that he will run if the final election law, yet to be completed in detail, is so framed that a civilian candidate has a fair chance of winning.

One More. Once the presidential elections are completed, along with upper house elections to be held on Sept. 1 as well, only one more election will remain to complete South Viet Nam's transition to civilian rule. That election, for the lower house, will take place on Oct. 1. Gracing the October roster of candidates may well be Mme. Nguyen Ky, onetime airline stewardess known as "the beauty of Air Viet Nam," who recently has confided to friends that she would not mind at all being a lady Congressman.

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