Free & Fair

Six days after the year's most dramatic appendectomy (TIME, March 15), Argentina's Strong Man left the hospital to vote for a Peronista Congress. He got what he wanted. Though ballot-counting was slow, particularly in the provinces, his party had captured more than two-thirds of the Congress seats. That will be enough to pass the constitutional amendment which will let President Peron run for a second term in 1952.

During the campaign, the police had given Peronistas every break, had gone out of their way to make life difficult for the opposition. But the elections themselves were free and fair; the opposition admitted it, and the results showed it. At week's end, with all their disadvantages, the opposition had managed to get about 35% of the vote (compared with 45% two years ago). Moreover, though Peron's much-publicized candidate Father Virgilio Filippo (TIME, Feb. 16) was elected deputy from Buenos Aires, he ran well behind the others on the party ticket. Among opposition parties, the Socialists showed the greatest gain.

Rumpled, round-faced Americo Ghioldi, Socialist editor of the lively, clandestine weekly La Vanguardia and brother of Communist Chief Rodolfo Ghioldi, was making a strong bid for a seat as deputy from Buenos Aires. That would give him official immunity and possible relief from the police, who had dogged him ever since the 1943 revolution. It would also assure him a big pulpit for his trenchant criticism of Peron & Co.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.