Argentina: Ghost from the Past

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A more unlikely political leader would be difficult to imagine. Tall, spare, bespectacled, Frondizi lacks the charisma of power; he has none of Fidel Castro's flamboyant oratory, transmits none of Ja-nio Quadros' messianic zeal. Yet in office he was a superb politician of maneuver—good at the back-room deal, the clever compromise that resolved disputes but settled no issues. In his four years as President, he had miraculously survived 35 major and innumerable minor crises. Against his countrymen's express wishes, he imposed austerity on Argentina as the only way to right the foundering economy, and seemed to be making it stick. He also knew how to play, to the final moment of drama, the risky game of defying Argentina's military leaders, who have not fought a war since 1870 (against tiny Paraguay) but who control Argentina. Gradually, Frondizi came to mistake this adroitness at survival for a genius for leadership, and to confuse the widespread admiration for his cleverness with genuine popularity. Congressional elections were coming up that could continue his legislative majority during the final two years of his six-year term. Frondizi decided to challenge the ghost that walks through Argentine politics.

False Prosperity. Underlying all politics in Argentina is the memory of Juan Per&243;n and of the restless underclasses who followed him faithfully for ten years. Until his overthrow in 1955, Per&243;n masked his dictatorial misrule by spreading Argentina's wealth before the public.

It was a false prosperity that inevitably ended in bankruptcy, but the masses gave him their devotion and have accepted no leader since. After his downfall, Per&243;n's name was forbidden on the ballot. Four years ago, to get elected, Frondizi in his usual adroit way courted the support of the outlawed Per&243;nistas. In power, he tried to assimilate the Per&243;nistas into the normal political life of the nation in a way that made Argentina's military leaders nervous. This year Frondizi managed to convince the military that the Per&243;nistas would be no threat in the elections, and that now was the time to destroy the Per&243;n myth once and for all by allowing his followers a place on the ballot.

How wrong Frondizi was became clear last week with the first election returns. With 86 congressional seats and 14 provincial governorships at stake, the Per&243;nistas won 44 seats and 9 provinces, plus Jujuy, where they ran in alliance with the Christian Democratic Party (see map). Actually, Per&243;nistas got only 35% of the vote, but their opponents were split. In the balloting, Frondizi's own Intransigent Radical Party polled 540,000 more votes than during the last national election in 1960. Yet so great was the Per&243;nista landslide that Frondizi's party lost 21 previously held seats, its majority in Congress, and control of five provinces. A second anti-Per&243;n party, the People's Radicals (once a single party with the Intransigents but now split away), lost 15 seats. The vote: Per&243;nista, 2,528,000; Frondizi, 2,038,000; People's Radicals, 1,659,000.