Argentina: Voting for a Ghost

From Argentina's subtropical north to the blustery Strait of Magellan, campaign banners straddled the streets and radios blared political slogans. Last week 10 million people went to the polls in what should have been a minor off-year congressional election. Only 99 of 192 seats were at stake in the Chamber of Deputies. But the election was far from routine, as Argentines demonstrated once more that the strongest force in Argentina's murky present is the ghost of its past: exiled Dictator Juan Domingo Perón, 69.

"We Are No. I." It was all a little reminiscent of the 1962 elections under President Arturo Frondizi, when the Peronistas won 35% of the vote, 44 seats and nine governorships. The difference was that in 1962 the Perón-hating military ousted Frondizi and promptly annulled the elections. This time, the military felt safe in allowing the Peronistas to run. There were no governorships at stake, and the government was in no real jeopardy in Congress. Even so, the results caused considerable head spinning.

The Peronistas' Popular Union Party and other neo-Peronista parties again rolled up 35% of the popular vote, won 44 seats for a total of 52, even captured populous Buenos Aires province and the neighboring province of Cordoba, home of President Arturo Illia and a longtime stronghold of his People's Radicals party. Illia's party finished with only 27% of the vote and a total of 70 seats in the Chamber of Deputies. "We have shown," said one Peronista leader, "that we are No. 1. The decision of the people is clear."

The decision seems to be that Illia's "government of reconciliation" is not enough for Argentina's restless citizens. Since taking office 17 months ago, Illia has allowed the debts, wages, prices and everything else to soar, while hoping that the basically rich wheat-and-beef economy would somehow work itself out of trouble. It has not, and many Argentines, searching for leadership, yearn for the days when El Lider was in power.

Not that Perón did much more than drive the country into economic ruin. Between 1946 and his downfall in 1955, Perón, assisted by his wife, Evita, lavished huge sums on industrialization and neglected the vital farm sector, created a vastly inefficient bureaucracy to produce full employment at the expense of the state treasury, and filled his own and his henchmen's pockets with graft. Successive governments have been trying to unscramble the mess and straighten out the Peronistas ever since.

High Maturity? Their efforts have only seemed to polarize Perón's following. From his exile in Spain, he promised to return to "save the people." Last December he made a ludicrously abortive attempt, was turned back in Rio. Today, most of Perón's top lieutenants privately concede the impossibility of el retorno. Perón is under tight restriction by the Spanish government, and he is aging. But he remains a symbol of strength in a country that lacks leadership. In Madrid last week he took a haughty view of the election. "The people," he told friends, "have shown a high degree of maturity in their vote."