ARGENTINA: A Workers' State

"We are now moving toward a syndicalist state," Juan Perón told trade union leaders after his re-election last November. A month later, without inviting or even informing opposition parties, his government in the remote Chaco territory along the Paraguayan border, 450 miles northwest of Buenos Aires, staged a constituent assembly and swiftly enacted a constitution. Thereupon, Chaco territory became Argentina's 18th province —Presidente Perón Province.

By last week enough information about the new constitution had seeped into Buenos Aires to indicate that the President was in deadly earnest about his syndicalist state. Opening with the words: "This is a workers' state," the constitution established favored trade unionists, i.e., members of Perón's General Confederation of Labor, as the new aristocracy of the land. By terms of its Article 33, they will enjoy a heavily weighted vote in elections. Of the provincial chamber's 30 deputies, 15 will be chosen by the province's estimated 200,000 ordinary voters, 15 by its estimated 30,000 union members. There will be two types of polling booths—one for the public, including independent union members, the other for C.G.T. members only. The new constitution also provides that only members of selected "professional organizations" (i.e., C.G.T. unions) may serve on the province's juries.

Elections in Argentina's first syndicalist province are scheduled for April. Radicals and Socialists, angry at Perón's secrecy, made plans last week to boycott them. They also pointed out that the trade unionists' double-voting privilege violates the national constitution's provision that "all inhabitants of this state are equal before the law." But there is little that they can do about it. Argentina's courts belong to. Perón too.