Queen for the Week

As she does each year at the Spring Festivals, a beauty queen last week took up her reign in Mexico City. Titian-haired Luz del Carmen ("Moy") Otero rode into the bullfight ring at the head of a 16-car cavalcade, presided at horse races, and went to a ball every night. Moy had a fine time and so did her father, suave General Ignacio Otero, commandant of the First Military Zone. Moy owed it all to Daddy.

As the spring festivals approached, Mexico City had had a rash of queen elections. Oilworkers, government clerks, sportsmen and the "proletarian districts" all elected their own queens, and crowned them at special fiestas. The press photographers got Cantinflas, Mexico's most popular comedian, to crown their queen (see cut). Moy ran as the army's candidate for queen of all the festivals. Her nearest competitor was sultry, dark-haired Yolanda Ortiz, candidate of the traffic cops (the police department had its own candidate). Almost everyone in Mexico City knew that they were running a close race, but that Moy was ahead.

The margin, thought the police, was close enough to try for an upset; they rushed election headquarters with a big batch of last-minute votes for Yolanda. But when they arrived, said the police, canny General Otero's troops had got there first, with arms instead of votes. His soldiers bluntly told the police that the polls were closed.

Though the policemen demanded a recount, General Otero was unmoved. He denied the whole incident and saw to it that his daughter was crowned. "Mexicans," he explained, "do not know how to lose." But General Otero knew how a winner should act. To appease his daughter's competitors--all princesses of the festivals--he invited them to a gala luncheon. As Moy and her princesses plunged into a week of parties, even the traffic police forgot about the squabble.

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