Buy-Election

After the March election, Chile's Chamber of Deputies was split right down the middle: 73 for the government of President Carlos Ibafiez, 73 for the combined opposition. The. first by-election would obviously give one side a slender advantage. Last week it fell to the village (pop. 100) of Coihueco, at the foot of the snowy Andes 250 miles south of Santiago, to pick one more Deputy for Congress.

Business Boom. Coihueco's election was held because the balloting there in March had been voided by irregularities. The complex mechanics of the substitute election sharpened the drama. Each of the two leading candidates needed only some of Coihueco's votes (added to votes already won elsewhere in the electoral district) to top the required minimum "quotient." Government Candidate Serafin Soto needed only 150 of the voters, who numbered 1,194, including neighboring farmers. Opposition Candidate Juan Luis Urrutia needed 672.

While all Chile watched for a week, 140 politicos poured into Coihueco to electioneer. The supply of fowl for the favorite local dish, cazuela de pava (turkey casserole), quickly ran out. and the wineshop had to replenish its stocks three times. The two spinsters who own Coihueco's only telephone took to their beds with aspirin, while reporters endlessly cranked the phone's old-style bell magneto. Business boomed. "Ah, to have elections every month!" said the merchants.

Bartered Ballots. Campaigners on both sides had reckoned the election too crucial to be left entirely to the voters' consciences, so they brought with them some $30,000 in cash. Everywhere, talk turned to the price of a vote. "I wanted 300 pesos [$3]," an old man was heard to say, "but they offered me only 230. There is no limit to the way they abuse the common people." The atmosphere of barter infected all Coihueco. Cabled TIME Correspondent Mario Planet: "I had to give 10 pesos to a little girl before she would tell me my way on a street. When I asked her another question, she demanded 10 more -- just like a Coke machine." On election day, voters went straight from polling places to the payoff agents.

That night votes were counted. Once the lights mysteriously went out; at another moment, an official collapsed in an epileptic seizure, almost starting a panic. In the end, the government's Soto won, making his quotient, while Urrutia fell short by 22. That should have settled the majority, but it did not. Reason: just before election day, another pro-government Deputy had been killed in an airline crash. The score is still 73 to 73. and the buy-election routine will probably have to be repeated in Copiapo.

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