MEXICO: Viva!

Mexico was full of fiesta for Sunday’s presidential election. Never before had the Federal Government registered voters for an election, never before had so many planned to vote. Never had the prospect of an honest election been so real.

For months both candidates had chugged up & down the broad boot of Mexico. From the choking desert of upper Sonora to the Mayan tombs of Yucatán, they had harangued enthusiastic, tamale-bolting, beer-guzzling crowds. Because Miguel Alemán was backed by the big Government machine, which had more beer, his crowds were largest. But the peons genuinely approved his promises of sensible, moderate continuation of the revolutionary ideal. And local businessmen, with whom he held long, earnest round-table conferences on regional affairs, believed in his determination to forge today’s great Latin dream—industrialization.

His rival, Ezequiel Padilla, grandiloquent apostle of international cooperation, traveled on a shoestring. His backers, a few conservative businessmen and some ardent amateurs, could not match the turnouts of Alemán’s labor unions and bureaucrats. But those who shouted “Viva!” were truly enthusiastic. Padilla’s eloquent speeches attacked traditional Mexican “imposition” of the Government candidate, flayed the Communists, subtly played for Church support. Oldtimers compared Padilla to the U.S.’s William Jennings Bryan —a magnificent orator, an impractical politician. Padilla’s outspoken wartime cooperation with the U.S. had not endeared him to the average, nationalist Mexican.

Last week both candidates made wind-up statements. Said confident Miguel Alemán: “If I lose I will acknowledge it.” No one expected he would have to.