Brazil: New President: Medium-Hard

If there is little suspense connected with Mexico's forthcoming presidential elections, there was none at all as Brazil last week formally chose General Emilio Garrastazú Médici, 63, as its head of state. For the past month, government printers in Brasilia, the capital, have been engraving Médici's name on official documents. New ambassadors have been arriving with credentials already addressed to him. Three weeks ago, the Shah of Iran even cabled congratulations to him. Sitting as an electoral college, Congress last week finally made it official by voting him into office, 293 to 0, with 76 abstentions. At the same time, right-wing Admiral Augusto Hamann Rademaker Grunewald was named Vice President.

Médici succeeds Arthur da Costa e Silva, an ex-army marshal who had ruled since 1967 but was partially paralyzed by a stroke last August. A military triumvirate took over the government, imperiously brushing aside the civilian Vice President, who should have succeeded Costa e Silva under the constitution. Early this month the brass reached into the ranks of four-star generals to choose Médici, the taciturn commander of Brazil's Third Army, as the new "candidate."

Cynical Jeers. Médici was almost unknown outside the army. Three weeks ago, when he went on television before 90 million countrymen with the pro forma promise to see "democracy definitely installed in our country," Brazilians responded with cynical jeers. "In the U.S.," went one gibe, "there are general elections. In Brazil, the generals elect."

To dress up Medici's election with a little democracy, the generals allowed Congress to reconvene for the first time since it was dissolved ten months ago in a military crackdown on civilian dissent. There is not much chance that the legislators will ever cause the new President any trouble. Under new amendments to the constitution, drafted by the military, congressional immunity has been abolished—on or off the floor of Congress. Should the President still find the lawmakers obstreperous, he can invoke certain "transitory provisions" to close Congress and rule by decree.

General Médici is known as "a man of few smiles and friends." He won some key friends in 1964, when he gave major support to the coup that established Brazil's military rule. Raised in Rio Grande do Sul, south Brazil's rugged cattle country, the new President is a compromise choice acceptable to both moderate officers and the linha dura —hardliners who would crack down even harder on dissent. Like most of his comrades-in-arms, he is convinced that only the military knows what is best for Brazil and its 90 million people. "There must be freedom," he said earlier this year, "but there can be no license to contradict the political desires of the nation."

The big question is whether the hardliners will find Médici too moderate. Already, Three-Star General Affonso Albuquerque Lima, a disappointed presidential aspirant, has warned Medici's men that "more audacious" officers are waiting in the wings. Clearly, Médici's problem will be to keep discontent from boiling over in the streets—and in the barracks as well.