Peaceful Election

In the quietest election of her modern history, Mexico this week chose Adolfo Ruiz Cortines, 59, as President for the next six years. The official count will not be announced until July 20, but government estimates based on incomplete returns indicated that Ruiz Cortines had carried more than 80% of the vote. Minister of the Interior in President Miguel Aleman's government for the past four years, Ruiz Cortines was the choice of the official Party of Revolutionary Institutions (PRI), which has governed the country for 22 years.

Eye for Trouble. With three other candidates running, the campaign had been about as lively as one-party rule permits. Multimillionaire General Miguel Henriquez Guzman made a particularly spirited bid, and some 22 partisans were killed in pre-election scuffles. But by the time the PRI poured 85 million pesos ($9,800,000) into the campaign and Ruiz Cortines toured through towns and hamlets all over the republic, the government had things well sewed up. On the actual day of balloting, 80,000 armed troops and police stood guard; not a single shot was fired, and only two men were arrested--for drunkenness.

For Mexico, which traditionally goes in for magnetic types as political leaders, Ruiz Cortines is quite a change. A staid and decorous little man with an ingrained aversion to personal publicity, he has none of his predecessor's razzle-dazzle or zest for gay Acapulco yachting parties. His favorite form of relaxation is playing dominos. Even the most cynical Mexicans acknowledge his honesty. "I was poor as a boy, and I still am," he said during the campaign.

Eye for Figures. Old enough to have fought as a major in the revolution, Ruiz Cortines has made a lifelong career as a bureaucrat. Back in 1914 he worked as a paymaster; one of the charges leveled at him during the recent election campaign was that he had been on the yanqui payroll during the occupation of Veracruz that year by U.S. armed forces. Ruiz Cortines, who refuted the charges, still wears a clerkish air, and takes a bureaucrat's professional pleasure in going through a good statistical report.

If it were not for outgoing President Aleman, Ruiz Cortines might still be preparing statistical reports. Thirteen years ago, Aleman took Cortines on as an aide and factotum. As Aleman moved up-- from the governorship of Veracruz to the Ministry of the Interior and to the presidential palace--his right-hand man moved right behind him. Will Ruiz Cortines be strong enough to go his own honest way now? His friends think so. He will continue Mexico's program of strenuous industrial expansion, they say, but with more orderly planning, "more austerity, more social justice, a more equitable distribution of wealth."

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