On the Mark

Down Mexico City's broad Paseo de la Reforma swept a noisy mob: partisans of Presidential Candidate Miguel Aleman. On their shoulders they bore a black coffin emblazoned in big white letters with the name of former Foreign Minister Ezequiel Padilla, new and rival entry in the Mexican Presidential campaign. Before Aleman's mansion headquarters the paraders stopped, lowered the coffin. Then they set it on fire. With elections still ten months away, the shouting had already begun. Said cynical observers of Mexico's politics: the shooting may be expected momentarily.

Because he already had the tentative backing of the Government P.R.M. (Partido de la Revolution Mexicana), Candidate Aleman seemed at present to have the blue chips on his side.

Traditionally, the Government party stalwarts get control of the polling places, count the ballots. If something should go wrong at a precinct, the mistake may be righted in the Chamber of Deputies, whose 144 members (all but three of whom belong to the P.R.M.) make the final check on the voting.

But smart Ezequiel Padilla still thought he had a chance to win: ("Nothing will make me desert, even to the ultimate sacrifice if necessary.") He was counting heavily on public reaction against the corruption of officials in power, on a growing wave of popular resentment against the fantastic mordida (bite) that Mexico's venal politicos were taking from a thousand-and-one large and petty rackets, from milk distribution to street paving.

Padilla was also banking on the sentiment for democracy that was in the postwar air of the hemisphere. In recent months both Cuba and Peru had chosen their Presidents in free, apparently honest elections. Now Brazil showed signs of switching from the corporate state to a more democratic setup. Perhaps Mexico would get the idea--and if it got the idea, maybe Padilla would be its choice.

If Mexico was to have the first free election of its history in July, 1946, it would be up to President Manuel Avila Camacho to enforce it. In his annual message to Congress he had made an equivocal promise to implement the people's will. But the President would have to introduce new electoral procedure, clearly tell the P.R.M. to keep its hands off the ballot boxes, and perhaps even insure a fair count by strict, nonpartisan supervision before his promise became fact.

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