The Choice is Yours: Vote Saddam

B A G H D A D, Iraq, Oct. 16 -- If you believe the Iraqi government, then there is not one dissenting voice in this country.

On Tuesday, voters were faced with a remarkably simple ballot: Should President Saddam Hussein be given another seven years in office? Yes or no. There were no alternative candidates on the ballot, and absolutely no campaigning against the entrenched Saddam.

Not surprisingly, the result was was unanimous.

According to Vice Chairman of the Revolutionary Command Council Izzat Ibrahim, there are 11,445, 638 registered voters in Iraq. This morning he said that every single one of them turned out to vote, and every single one of them voted "Yes" for their president, Saddam Hussein.

A substantial number of voters didn't just tick a box, they pricked the pads of their thumbs and gave Saddam their vote in blood.

Donkey Vote?

But was all of this an emphatic endorsement for the Iraqi regime that the U.S. would like to change? Almost certainly not.

Genuine public opinion in this country is impossible to gauge. Outside polling stations, crowds chanted "Yes, yes to our leader Saddam Hussein," "Down, Down America," and "Bush, Bush, donkey, donkey." Saddam obviously benefits from an anti-Americanism stirred by years of sanctions and the immediate threat of war.

But the chanting children were cajoled by adults, and Saddam T-shirts were handed out by government officials.

ABCNEWS visited a polling station in Kerbala, about an hour's drive south of Baghdad. The ballot box was covered by silver gift paper with "congratulations" written all over it. On each side was a photograph of Saddam in the centre of a red paper heart.

Aside from the slot for ballots, it looked like a tasteless Valentine's Day gift.

The unspoken instruction of how to vote was not subtle.

Last night in Baghdad a sculptor finished work on a new likeness of Saddam. This time it's a gilt statue of Saddam the lawman. The new work is part of the referendum victory celebrations, and obviously was started weeks before a vote was even cast.