The polls closed promptly at 6 p.m. By 7:15, smiling, handsome Carlos Prio Socarras had heard enough of the returns to know that he would be Cuba's next President. He left the Havana headquarters of the Auténtico Party, hustled home to change his guayabera (sport shirt) and slacks for a white linen suit. Then he rode off to the presidential palace in a horn-tooting, placard-plastered motorcade.
In his second-floor office, President Ramón Grau San Martin gave his ex-student and fellow revolutionary a heartfelt Latin abrazo. "I've said it many times before and I repeat it now," said Grau, "Prio is well able to assume the direction of the destinies of Cuba." Out in the Parque Central, thousands of excited Cubans tooted more horns, shot rockets into the tropical night.
At week's end, the final tally gave Prio 889,000 votes. His Liberal opponent, Dr. Ricardo Núñnez Portuondo, got 608,000; fiery little Senator "Eddy" Chibas got 318,000. The Communists, recently kicked out of control of Cuban labor, still turned in 142,000 votes (about 80,000 less than in 1944) for Dr. Juan Marinello.
President-elect Prio and the Auténticos also got a majority in Congress. But the minority might be lively. Among the new senators: moonfaced ex-Dictator Batista, who had directed his campaign from a deck chair in Daytona Beach, Fla., and was expected to return to Cuba in September.
Cuban dopesters figured that Prio, so long as he gave the country good government, need not worry about Batista. A first and major job: driving the grafters from the public trough. When well-meaning friends like Eddy Chibas had gone to Grau and said, "Doctor, they are stealing," the idealistic President had refused to believe it. Prio knows better.