More & Worse Trouble

The biggest name in Brazil's midterm state and congressional elections last week got the biggest comeuppance. Janio Quadros, 45, elected mayor of Sao Paulo city in 1953, governor of Sao Paulo state in 1954 and President of Brazil by a record margin in 1960, was running for office for the first time since he abdicated the presidency in August 1961. He chose his old stamping ground, Sao Paulo, and his old job, governor. Totting up the official returns takes weeks in Brazil, but all indications are that Quadros suffered a humiliating defeat. With 86% of the ballots counted, he was behind by 121,677 votes.

On the campaign trail, the ex-President looked and sounded like the old Quadros; so sure was he of victory that he introduced himself at rallies as "your governor." But the erratic, wild-haired Quadros, who says that "occult forces" drove him from the presidency, did not wow the voters as he had before. Favoring a predictable politician over the unpredictable one, they gave the lead to a somewhat shopworn old figure named Adhemar de Barros, whose scandal-tainted state administration was turned out by Quadros eight years ago. A Quadros aide passed word that the ex-President was again considering a long sea voyage.

Aside from the Quadros upset, it was pretty much politics as before in Brazil. With few exceptions, the reigning parties --ex-President Juscelino Kubitschek's free-spending Social Democrats and President Joao Goulart's leftist-nationalist Laborites--hung on to their powerful blocs in the country's fractured Congress, and that suggested that Brazil is in for more and worse trouble. So loud was the squabbling in the outback capital of Brasilia in the last session that Congress proved itself incapable of passing legislation aimed at solving Brazil's desperate economic and social problems. It rarely even produced a quorum. Since then, the problems have only grown worse. Last week Finance Minister Miguel Calmon reported that Brazil owes foreign oil suppliers $45 million and cannot pay, and that the trade deficit for the first nine months of 1962 stands at $162 million.

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