The Constitutional Way

Though two of Latin America's biggest nations -- Argentina and Brazil --are under stiff military dictatorship, the rest of Latin America is generally going its constitutional way. Last week three countries had new Presidents.

In Bolivia, Rene Barrientos, 47, ex-Air Force general who deposed President Victor Paz Estenssoro two years ago, was inaugurated as Bolivia's 47th President. With massive support from the country's long-neglected campesinos, Barrientos' motley coalition party of leftists and rightists swept into power with 100 of Congress' 129 seats, promising more of the same firm, reform-minded government that began with Barrientos' military junta. In his inaugural speech, Barrientos assigned top priority to creating 10,000 new jobs in private fields; building scores of new schools and hospitals and at least 15,000 new homes a year; and stepping up agricultural production.

In Colombia, Economist Carlos Lleras Restrepo, 58, candidate of the country's faltering National Front coalition of liberals and conservatives, took office with one big strike against him. In the March elections, the Front won only 162 of Congress' 306 seats, far short of the needed two-thirds majority, and Lleras Restrepo's program of welfare and land reform will face an ob streperous opposition led by ex-Dictator (1953-57) Gustavo Rojas Pinilla. But Lleras Restrepo can always fall back on the 15-month-old state of siege declared by former President Guillermo Leon Valencia, empowering the President to legislate by decree.

In Nicaragua, Lorenzo Guerrero, former Interior Minister and Vice President, succeeded automatically to the presidency fortnight ago after the fatal heart attack suffered by President Rene Schick, the quiet, courtly Managua professor who was the hand-picked candidate of Nicaragua's all-powerful Somoza family. Guerrero plans no changes in government policy, is expected only to keep the office until next February's elections, when Anastasio ("Tachito") Somoza intends to run.

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