ARGENTINA: Nobody’s Government

Hope of a tregua (political truce) for politically torn Argentina died aborning last week. In a huff the Chamber of Deputies cold-shouldered Acting President Ramon S. Castillo’s plea of “urgent necessity” and adjourned without approving either a budget or a $110,000,000 loan from the U.S. This left the Government budgetless for its second consecutive year.

The Chamber’s Radical majority administered this rebuff to Argentina’s Conservative Acting President for two reasons: 1) he had refused to acknowledge its demand that German Ambassador Baron Edward von Thermann be handed his passport; 2) he ignored Radical clamor for a guarantee that November and December provincial elections be conducted honestly, i.e., under Federal rather than potentially fraudulent provincial supervision. The Radicals’ objective was to force an extraordinary session for another try at ratification of the sorely needed loan, then to use the meeting to air these complaints. Ramon Castillo said flatly that no extraordinary session would be called.

Argentina was virtually without a Government. President Roberto Marcelino Ortiz was too ill to govern. Acting President Castillo too hamstrung by the Radicals, who saw their party being edged out of the power it won at the polls.

Buenos Aires bulged with political gossip. Most pungent rumor was that onetime President Agustin Pedro Justo was quietly readying a comeback. Many party bigwigs, already culling candidates for the national elections in 1943, derisively termed him “a political candidate in search of a party.” But veteran politicos, recalling the General Justo of old, added two & two, got approximately four:

He retains significant strength (especially among brass hats) in the Army, is said to have masterminded the suppression of last fortnight’s aviation-branch “revolt” (TIME, Oct. 6). He can count on support from Ramon Castillo. He remains in the good graces of the U.S. State Department. But the Radical Party, mindful of his strong-arm treatment of its leaders when he was last in power, will be out to nail him. Consensus: dark horse he may be, but not too dark to wind up atop the Conservative Party’s ticket. If so, he will probably be elected, although Argentina is overwhelmingly Radical.

The election frauds that have marked Conservative victories in recent years have been gifted with a charming sense of humor. Election-day dodges in “unfavorable” districts have ranged from high-powered laxatives in the food of poll watchers (opposition watchers chalked up added counts as victims dashed from the room) to voting booths atop unclimbable poles (Argentine law provides secret polling booths, but does not specify locations).

“In Argentina,” a cynical politician once said, “we have carried the secret ballot to its logical extreme: it is so secret that not even the voter knows for whom he is voting.”