Restructuring Government in South Vietnam

Abstract

The Republic of Vietnam is currently engaged in another major effort at governmental reconstruction designed to endow that beleaguered state with national governmental institutions claiming legitimacy on the basis of a popular mandate. On March 27, 1967, The Armed Forces Council of the Republic of Vietnam put its stamp of approval on a new constitution, to take effect on April 1, 1967, that had been presented to it by the Constituent Assembly elected in September 1966. The military council further announced that in line with the new constitution's provisions, national elections for a President, a Vice-President, and the Upper House or Senate of the new bicameral National Assembly would be held on September 1, 1967 (now scheduled for September 3, 1967). Thereafter, members of the Lower House or House of Representatives of the new National Assembly would be elected on October 1, 1967.1 In addition, these national elections were preceded by local elections held during ten Sundays between April 2, 1967 and June 11, 1967 and designed to provide self-administration at the village and hamlet levels in denoted areas, i.e., those under government control and considered pacified. Thus, in the midst of a major war with all its attendant difficulties and crises, South Vietnam is attempting to make a transition from the unstable rule of self-appointed shifting military-dominated governmental coalitions that have ruled since November 1, 1963 to a hopefully stable elected government. How are we to account for this process of constitution-building and what are the prospects for its success in South Vietnam? What kind of rule is likely to emerge? Recourse to elections as well as the attempt to create a new constitutional framework under such adverse conditions as obtain in South Vietnam bear eloquent testimony to underlying continuing disunity in the Vietnamese body politic, military as well as civilian. The simple truth is that there was an inherent instability in the coalition of officers of the Republic's Armed Forces which overthrew the Ngo Dinh Diem regime on November 1, 1963, and in the ranks of the civilian leaders who, reflecting widespread public discontent, supported them. There were deep-seated divisions among