BRAZIL: The Man on Top

Brazil's presidential race was dramatically close, and the vote-counting was dramatically slow. This week, with more than two-thirds of an estimated 10 million paper ballots tallied, the apparent winner was sometime Physician Juscelino Kubitschek, 54, grandson of a Silesian immigrant, ex-governor of Minas Gerais State, candidate of a patchwork left and center coalition. Middle-Roader Kubitschek ran with Communist endorsement, which, in public, he neither accepted nor rejected. His slogan: "Power, Transportation and Food." Brazil can use more of all three.

Early vote returns, heavily weighted with big-city votes from Rio and São Paulo, gave Millionaire Politico Adhemar de Barros a temporary lead, but Kubitschek forged slowly ahead after reports began coming in from the inland states, notably Minas Gerais. The count early this week: Kubitschek 2,277,000, Army General Juarez Távora 2,112,000, Barros 1,942,000.

The vice-presidential vote took an unexpected turn. Under Brazil's rules permitting ticket-splitting, hundreds of thousands of voters who decided for Candidate Barros also voted for Candidate Tavora's running mate, an able jurist named Milton Campos. At week's end Campos was so close behind Kubitschek's running mate, leftish João ("Jango") Goulart, that the contest was still in doubt.

Kubitschek may have secretly hoped that his man Jango would lose. That result could actually improve Kubitschek's prospects of taking office in routine fashion on inauguration day (Jan. 31). The army generals who last year demanded President Getulio Vargas' resignation (he committed suicide instead) have little liking for Kubitschek. He was a friend of Vargas and member of a pro-Vargas party, the Social Democrats; thus he was at least indirectly linked with the charges of corruption that brought the Vargas regime crashing down. But the generals have even less liking for youthful (37) Rabble-Rouser Goulart, head of Vargas' own Labor Party, and a Vargas Labor Minister before the army forced him out. Public opinion is against any more coups, and the generals are probably willing to go along with Kubitschek. But they might draw the line at Jango.

If Kubitschek does take office as President, he will bring to his tasks a sound record as an energetic governor who built roads and public works, got loans, and drew business capital to his state. When campaigning, he sings and sambas with gusto, orates with spellbinding fervor; but he gets a lot of work done too.