Unfortunate Throwback

Aided by the Alliance for Progress and a strong infusion of private investment, Central America's five nations are enjoying unprecedented economic prosperity (TIME, Jan. 1). Politically, El Salvador, Guatemala and Nicaragua seem headed toward more or less representative governments, and Costa Rica has become a model constitutional republic. But there is one unfortunate throwback to the old era of machine-gun politics when O. Henry described Central America as a collection of "little opera bouffe nations that play at government and intrigue."

Honduras held elections last week for the first time in seven years, ostensibly to choose a constituent assembly to write a new constitution for the country. In reality it was to legalize the strong-arm rule of Colonel Osvaldo Lopez, 44, the ambitious air force officer who ousted President Ramon Villeda Morales in October 1963.

Shortly before the election, the Nationalist Party supporting Lopez announced that if it won a majority of the 64 assembly seats, it would declare the colonel to be Honduras' constitutional President. To provide a semblance of opposition, Lopez permitted the deposed Villeda Morales to return from exile in Costa Rica and run a full slate of Liberal Party candidates. That was largely window dressing. Opposition leaders complained that army troops went around arresting key Liberal organizers and lifting the identity cards of thousands of Liberal Party members.

On election day, the first returns showed such an embarrassingly heavy Nationalist landslide that the government stopped issuing hourly reports. When they were resumed, the race was much closer, with the Nationalists finally winning 35 seats to the Liberals' 29. The result coincided exactly with the predictions government officials gave foreign newsmen. Said one U.S. policymaker: "We did our best to push the colonel toward real elections."

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