The Bathtub Election

Like New Yorkers, habaneros worry about their water supply. Long a perplexing problem because of Havana's never-ceasing growth and the difficulties of piping it into town, the shortage of water led Mayor Fernandez Supervielle to suicide three years ago. His successor Nicolas Castellanos, former president of the city council, refused to despair. Energetically he built up the city's reservoirs. Last week a grateful citizenry elected Castellanos mayor in his own right.

A handsome former truck driver who looks like Tyrone Power, Castellanos had put on a dashing personal campaign. He and his pretty wife Laudelina buzzed through town in a fishtail Cadillac, reminded everyone how his administration had filled the city's bathtubs. In downtown Havana, citizens came to gaze admiringly at an election propaganda waterfall spurting brightly over an aluminum sheet. At week's end unofficial tallies showed 171,828 votes for Castellanos to 119,555 for his opponent, merry Antonio Prio Socarras, the Autentico (government) party's candidate, brother of Cuba's President Carlos Prio and the odds-on favorite of smart political dopesters.

On election eve one big-time bettor offered $100,000 to $50,000 that Antonio Prio would win. Confident President Carlos Prio counseled brother Antonio: "You do your best, and when the time comes, I'll give the final push." But a last-minute speech by the President was not enough.

Though the Havana mayoralty was the election's juiciest plum, and therefore a sharp setback for the Prio brothers' machine, their Autentico party cleaned up in the provinces. They won a majority of 66 congressional seats, elected more than 100 of the island's 126 new mayors.

Castellanos had fought the Autenticos with one of the strangest political alliances in the republic's history. Behind him were right-wing Republicans, former Dictator Fulgencio Batista, ex-President Grau San Martin (who is Batista's pet hate) and Cuba's small (140,000 members) Communist Party (Popular Socialist Party). The comrades made the most of the coalition victory. Crowed their daily, Hoy: "We salute the overwhelming victory of national significance of our candidate . . ."

Mayor Castellanos made it clear to everybody that bath water and not ideology had carried him into office. "My only obligation is to the people of Cuba, and especially to habaneros" he proclaimed. "I will now complete my promise to give Havana all the water it needs."

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