La Capitana

The voice thundered, amplified by a bullhorn: "Who wants electricity connected?" Crews scrambled to string up power lines. "Who does not have the telephone he applied for?" Another utility crew rushed to work. Behind the bellowing bullhorn stood a round-faced, chunky woman who is known to Colombia's poor as "La Capitana del Pueblo"--the captain of the people. Once, when pleas for water had gone unheeded, La Capitana and a work crew manned picks and shovels to unearth a water main and hooked up public taps --without city help or approval.

Feet First. Some might call it pure demagoguery, but Maria Eugenia Rojas de Moreno Diaz, 37, has not earned her reputation as a defender of the poor by sitting around in Colombia's lavish private clubs. Maria Eugenia is the force behind a growing wave of populism. As her political power grows, the nation's Liberal and Conservative parties, which offer little more than Tweedledum and Tweedledee choices, are growing downright panicky.

Maria Eugenia is the daughter of Gustavo Rojas Pinilla, 71, the controversial dictator who took office in 1953. He is credited with helping to end the fighting between Liberal and Conservative factions that had claimed 200,000 lives in the bloody violencia, and curbing the power of the elite. His regime, however, is also remembered for unbridled corruption and outrageous strong-arm tactics. Finally, the military sent him scampering into Spanish exile in 1957. Maria Eugenia went into self-exile in the U.S. and gave birth to two sons while living in Miami with her husband, Senator Samuel Moreno Diaz.

By the time Rojas Pinilla returned to Colombia in 1958, the politicos had stitched together the cozy National Front coalition through which the Conservatives and the Liberals alternate the presidency every four years. Last year, however, the former dictator--contrary to the gentleman's agreement of the National Front--entered the race as a Conservative--and lost to the official candidate, Misael Pastrana Barrero, by only 1.5% of the total vote.

Maria Eugenia, convinced that the election was a fraud, tried to say so in the Senate, where she holds a seat. Permission to speak was denied, but she got up on her desk and began to orate anyway. Finally, four burly men picked her up and carried her out of the chamber feet first--with Maria Eugenia laughing heartily all the way.

Eclectic Platform. Behind the scenes, Maria Eugenia runs her father's party, the Alianza National Popular, known simply as ANAPO. As majority leader of Bogota's city council, she is also de facto mayor of the capital.

ANAPO has representatives in at least 700 of Bogota's 900 neighborhoods. The first person to call on migrants pouring into the slums from depressed rural areas is usually an ANAPO recruiter. The party obtains jobs for 400 people a month in Bogota alone, offers free medical and dental care to members. With 24 cities of 100,000 or more people in Colombia (overall population: 21 million), that kind of urban organization could lead to an ANAPO victory in the 1974 elections. The established parties are painfully aware of that, and President Pastrana is pressing Congress for basic educational, agrarian and urban reorms. Meanwhile, inflation is increasing while the price of Colombia's prime export, coffee, is down to 40-c- a pound, v. $1 during the fat '50s.

Similar economic stagnation--along with similar inaction by the established politicians--helped bring a Marxist coalition to power in Chile last year and has spawned a predominantly leftist front in Uruguay, where elections were held early this week. Both movement are strongly nationalistic and directed to a large degree against foreign investment. ANAPO, using the same technique, calls for a state takeover of all mineral wealth, the import-export trade and the banking system. A probable target might be some of the $700 million private U.S. stake in Colombia, half of it in oil. But Rojas Pinilla himself does not openly oppose foreign investment.

Actually, ANAPO's eclectic platform, formalized earlier this year by a Marxist, a moderate leftist and a conservative, promises to reform everything but goes into few specifics. Rojas Pinilla is a conservative on land reform; he still owns substantial acreage picked up during his days as dictator. Thus, instead of calling for land expropriation, he speaks of "colonizing" new lands to increase production. Much of his party's appeal is rooted in the frustrations of the lower classes, and the party's overall thrust is to the left. But the magnetism of the old dictator and his daughter seems to outweigh the appeal of orthodox Marxism.

Switch in Gender. If age, diabetes and a heart pulsed by a pacemaker keep Rojas Pinilla from running in 1974, Maria Eugenia would most certainly pick up the ANAPO banner. There is some question whether Colombians would vote for a woman; famous women in Latin America tend to be the mistresses of famous men. But a surprising number of Colombians, when asked about a woman President, told TIME'S David Lee: "Ah, but Maria Eugenia is muy macha"--a switch in gender of the word describing a virile man.

Nonetheless, a woman has certain advantages on the campaign trail. At every whistlestop, male candidates are expected to drink a mind-numbing local firewater known as aguardiente. To refuse is an insult, even though two or three shots are enough to end a politician's campaigning for the night. Maria Eugenia, by gently declining a drink, can squeeze in twice as many speeches as the average, reeling male.

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