The Jolly Green Giant

Venezuela's quinquennial election last week was complicated by more than two dozen competing parties and an electorate of 4,000,000 that is at least one-quarter illiterate. Nevertheless, an ingenious ballot preserved the essence of democratic form. At 15,315 polls, voters received a stack of colored cards and an envelope. Each card was a different color to represent a party, and the campaign publicity had been heavy enough that even illiterates could choose correctly from the spectrum. The incumbent Action Democrdtica, for example, had a pristine white card. Action's closest competition, the Social

Christian Party, had a green one, and to emphasize the point, its founder and presidential candidate, Rafael Caldera, became known as "the Green Giant."

Palming the deck, a voter tucked one postal-sized presidential card and one smaller congressional card into his envelope, sealed that and discarded the remainder. He also dipped his finger into indelible ink. The stain then prevented anyone from voting twice.

As the cards were slowly tallied, Rafael Caldera looked more and more like a jolly green giant. He seemed likely to topple a strong party in power, a rare event in Latin America. Caldera's lead at week's end over Action Candidate Gonzalo Barrios was razor-slim: 40,000 votes with 400,000 yet to be counted. Yet election officials predicted a narrow Caldera victory, although one in which he would have to form a co -alition government.

Party Squabbles. How the coalition would shape up interested Venezuelans, for the moment, less than what had happened to a party that had almost everything going for it. Dictator Marcos Perez Jimenez in the '50s had used the country's oil revenues, its biggest source of income, to turn Caracas into one of South America's most spectacular cities and to refurbish himself as well. Action Democrdtica ousted Perez Jimenez in 1958 and put the oil money into schools, highways, health programs and rural electrification. Venezuela still has a $900 million reserve and the bolivar is the continent's strongest currency. Not surprisingly, Barrios' slogan was a simple "continuismo."

Action Democrdtica's good works for the country were offset by party infighting. Miffed because he was denied the presidential nomination, Party President Luis Beltran Prieto Figueroa stomped out to form his own slate. Last week Prieto had received more than 600,000 votes, many of which would have gone to Barrios if Prieto had not also run, and almost certainly would have changed the outcome.

Front Runner Caldera, who at 52 had made three previously unsuccessful attempts to become President, was a forceful contender in his own right. He began planning his campaign two years ago, and assembled a cadre of 15,000 field workers, who reported weekly. Caldera appealed to poorer voters who had previously voted the white card by promising more aid to them. In the end, however, his big vote came from the middle class--and from young new voters. The Green Giant's militant youth organizers, called Green Berets, wooed voters who had turned 18 since the last election. And the party, perhaps, won some votes--as well as many a ribald observation--with a Caldera proposal for a volunteer women's corps whose members would replace housewives in their homes to enable the hard-working wives to take an occasional vacation.

Crime in the Streets. The election was so democratic that even the old dictator was allowed to run for office. Perez Jimenez, now 54, organized a party called the National Civic Crusade.

He campaigned from Madrid, where he has lived since last August after completing his six-year jail term for stealing government funds. In absentia, he won a Senate seat, a position that will allow him to return home with im munity from civil suits. Eleven of his followers, moreover, have been elected Deputies to Venezuela's lower house so far. Some voters said they voted for Perez Jimenez because in the old dictatorial days, Perez Jimenez' police goons belted the bandits before they had a chance to rob anybody. Under the new democratic regimes, there seems to be more police restraint and crime in the streets, a refrain not entirely alien to the recent U.S. campaign.

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