Candidate Famine

On July 14, Cuba will elect a new President, a Vice President, 36 Senators, 162 members of the House of Representatives, six provincial governors and more than 150 mayors. Cuba has a dozen political parties, roughly herded into one of two coalition groups: the Government coalition, whose candidate for President is Colonel Fulgencio Batista, and the opposition front, which nominated Dr. Ramon Grau San Martin, onetime (1933-34) President and head of the "Revolutionary Party." Last week Dr. Grau got mad and withdrew.

What Strong Man Batista wants in this election is opposition but not too much opposition. Last March Candidate Batista made a deal with General Mario Garcia Menocal who thereupon withdrew his candidacy. Then the remaining opposition parties got together on Dr. Grau, with the understanding that the vice-presidential nomination should go to the ABC (semi-Fascist) candidate, Joaquin Martinez Saenz, that the Republican Action Party's leader, onetime President Miguel Mariano Gomez, should be the nominee for Mayor of Havana, No. 2 political job on the island. But election laws require that each party nominate a full ticket, which later may be "corrected" by withdrawals. All the opposition parties made up their tickets, with the understanding that dummy candidates would withdraw later. Time passed and many of the dummies forgot to withdraw. Last week Dr. Grau looked for his party's dummy vice-presidential candidate to get his withdrawal, found he had skipped Havana. Honor compelled Dr. Grau to throw up the sponge. Candidate Gomez, also an honorable man, resigned too.

With no opponent at all, Strong Man Batista was in a worse fix than if he had had a strong opponent. If he is elected unopposed, his enemies can raise the cry of dictatorship, which Strong Man Batista would hate to hear. At week's end he pleaded with Dr. Grau to reconsider his withdrawal, to file again before the deadline, April 30.

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