The scholar Bernard B. Fall stated that "there is not the slightest doubt that this plebiscite was only a shade more fraudulent than most electoral tests under a dictatorship". The American journalist Stanley Karnow cited the dubious plebiscite as evidence of Diệm's "mandarin mentality". Chapman wrote that "... no amount of unilateral campaigning, anti-Bảo Đại sentiment, or Confucian political restraint could explain Diệm's 98 percent margin of victory in a politically heterogeneous South Vietnam. Corruption and intimidation must have played a significant role."Chapman, p. 699. Buttinger said that while the monarchy was "another rotten relic of Vietnam's past" and Bảo Đại "its last, unworthy representative", fraud and intimidation were unnecessary as Diệm would have won easily in any event. Historian David Anderson said the victory "was not a true representation of Diệm's power or popularity. The emperor's weakness, the disarray of the political opposition, and other such factors explain his triumph".
