VIETNAM POLL

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31167, 17 September 1966, Page 15

VIETNAM POLL

‘Completely Crooked’

(N.Z Press Assn.—Copyright) SAIGON, Sept. 16. Militant Buddhist leaders yesterday charged that Sunday's nation-wide electicns were “completely crooked” and that the Government had inflated the figures on the number of Vietnamese who cast ballots for the Constituent Assembly. The Buddhist Church had called on followers to boycott the elections or cast blank ballots. The Viet Cong had tried to keep voters away from the polls by a campaign of terrorism. Official figures on the turnout are expected to be issued within the next few days. Unofficial figures released by the Government showed 80.8 per cent of the eligible 5.2 i million voters had taken part I in the balloting for the 117- ' member assembly which will write a new constitution for South Vietnam. The charges were made in a communique from the Vien Hoa Dao headquarters in Saigon signed by Thich Thien Hoa, the acting rector. It claimed that only a minority of the people participated in 'the elections and the assem-

bly therefore does not truly represent the people of South Vietnam.

It was the same line taken by Radio Hanoi and the socalled Liberation Radio of the Viet Cong. The church said

it reached its conclusions through interviews with people, reports from Saigon Radio news reports and from “confirmation of news from officials.” The communique gave no details of its reported survey nor did it give any figures, but it said it had “sufficient evidence to proclaim before the people that the election was not truly participated in by the majority of the people in South Vietnam as it has been said by the government with the 'support of the United States I Government.”