BOLIVIA: Fight for Life

In the thin, cold air of the Andean altiplano, Bolivia’s two-year-old democracy fought for breath to live. President Enrique Hertzog, a doctor experienced in pulmonary problems, had pulled his patient through five states of siege. Last week a fresh complication set in. The doctor himself, worn out and suffering from kidney and heart trouble, took a leave of absence.

In parliamentary elections earlier in the week, Hertzog’s moderate democrats had achieved their long-sought majority. But at the same time the Movement of Nationalist Revolution, the totalitarian-type party whose leaders were driven underground with the lynching of Dictator-President Gualberto Villaroel in 1946, took a new lease on life. The M.N.R. elected nine deputies, and its candidates ran second in many districts of the country. On election night its partisans tangled with pro-Hertzog paraders under the lampposts in La Paz’ Plaza Murillo, where Villaroel had been hanged. By the time the government got things in hand (Hertzog declared a sixth state of siege), eleven Bolivians were dead, 81 injured.

With M.N.R. once more on the march, Hertzog’s ministers pleaded with him to stay. Hertzog’s unhappy answer: “Gentlemen, I appeal to your human feelings to let me go.” During the month or two that the 62-year-old President planned to rest in the lower altitudes of northwest Bolivia’s yungas (valleys), elegant, easygoing Vice President Mamerto Urriolagoitia would take over at the palace. Many Bolivians feared that Dr. Hertzog’s patient might not live to see his return.