Two-Party System

One morning last week stocky, pudgy-cheeked little President Lazaro Cardenas stood before the opening session of what may or may not prove to be the 38th Federal Congress of Mexico. For 65 minutes he talked--about inter-American solidarity, about the justice of his oil expropriations, about the success of his regime in decreasing illiteracy and redistributing land to the peasants. In the Chamber's jampacked diplomatic gallery German Minister Baron Ruedt von Collenberg-Boedigheim listened with Teutonic impassiveness as other speakers swung into attacks on totalitarianism. Thinner-skinned Italian Minister Count Alberto Marchetti di Muriaglio frowned, grimaced, twitched. Behind them U. S. Ambassador Josephus Daniels, knowing no Spanish, beamed with vacuous amiability. There was not much clarification in the session, although it was Cardenas' farewell address to his troubled nation. And in farewell he placed his official blessing on General Manuel Avila Camacho as his successor.

But even as he spoke a second Congress met in secret, duly proclaimed itself legally elected, and two days later declared General Juan Andreu Almazan the next President. To clinch its claims it went even further. Finding Cardenas in violation of the Constitution for "using public force to impose Avila Camacho and by rendering his last address before a congress of usurpation," it named its own substitute, General Hector F. Lopez, to fill out the remainder of his term.

Nervously Mexico watched this threatening dualism. Last July's farcical, bloody election had settled nothing. Dark overtones of gunfire continued. A dozen Mexicans had been wounded in shooting bouts on that day alone. Rumors of revolt sprang up everywhere. Quipped one cynic: "Well, at last Mexico has a two-party system."

General Almazan was obviously getting ready to push the shaky civil peace a notch closer to open war. Ever since election day he had left his followers dangling and disorganized while he "vacationed" in Havana, then in Guatemala. Fortnight ago he was still on tour, turned up in Mobile, two days later in Baltimore, where he took a modest apartment on quiet 32nd Street with his wife and 17-year-old daughter. He insisted that he was just a tourist. He visited friends, walked in Wyman Park, went to the movies, read U. S. and Mexican newspapers, answered his mail. By 10 p.m. he was in bed.

But two days after his rebellious Congress had convened, General Almazan went into action. He rushed to Manhattan, where he could get a good press, ripped off a fiery statement drubbing the Cardenas-Camachistas up & down the line. He accused them of consorting with Communism, of falsifying the election returns, of failing to improve domestic conditions "after six years of short cuts to Utopia." Shrewdly he hinted opposition to the confiscation of U. S. interests in Mexico. Then, in ringing defiance, he gave his followers their cue: "The people of Mexico are sick of racketeer government--sick to the point of revolt. . . . At the proper time I will return to Mexico and claim the high office to which I am entitled by an overwhelming vote of the people."

Call to Arms. Stage-wise Almazanistas picked up their lines. While Government forces hunted its secret meeting place, the rump Congress whipped out a manifesto of its own. Reiterating Almazan's charges of Communism, it thought up some new angles, accused the Government's PRM (Party of the Mexican Revolution) of 12,000 political murders, among other crimes, concluded with a call to arms against Cardenas.

Up till now the complacent Cardenas-Camachistas had busily pooh-poohed any danger of revolution. Government troops were patrolling highways, keeping a close watch on airports and railroads as a check on Almazanista movements. New troops were reported on their way to reinforce the 10,000 already in the capital. Graciano Sanchez had declared 80,000 trained members of his National Confederation of Peasants were ready to take up their rifles in support of Cardenas and Avila Camacho.

But the implications of this call to rebellion were too much even for them. The constant attacks on Cardenas, coupled with an almost total disregard of his would-be successor, meant clearly that a case for revolt was being built up and that, if it came, it would come soon--before Cardenas leaves office in December. Almazanista leaders were hurriedly subpoenaed, ordered to appear before the First District Criminal Court of Mexico City on charges of sedition and "criminal provocation." The Almazanistas countered by preparing written declarations to be presented at the hearings instead. Outsmarted, the Camacho headquarters hastily resumed its former position, declaring: "The Almazanistas may call the people to rebellion until doomsday without receiving any answer."

This all's-well fiction continued to crumble as reports, vigorously denied by Cardenas spokesmen, poured in from the provinces. Four men were killed in a skirmish in the northern state of Durango. A train was reported held up near Almazan's Monterrey stronghold. Armed men boarded a ship in Veracruz, seized stores of frozen meat from Argentina. A hurried visit to the capital by the military commander of Chiapas started a flood of rumors that trouble was brewing in the south.

North of the Border. All week long a stream of Almazan followers moved north through Mexico, crossed into the U. S. at Laredo and Brownsville, poured into San Antonio, whose 90,000 Mexicans stood almost solidly for Almazan. Thirty years ago onetime President Francisco Madero used this same town as a jumping-off place for the revolution which carried him to power.

The arrival of General Jose Mijares Palencia and Eduardo Neri in San Antonio touched off rumors that a revolutionary council was actually being organized. Big-hipped, soft-spoken Pepe Palencia beat the Almazan drums for the election this summer. Less in the spotlight, more powerful from the background was chunky, balding Neri, head of Almazan's PRUN (Revolutionary Party of National Unification). If a junta was being formed, he was the man to form it.

This week there were still no signs that any active, policy-forming body was in action. It appeared to be merely a kitchenette Cabinet (see cut, p. 40), waiting for the signal from the boss. The General himself, whom many U. S. businessmen would like to see in the Presidency because of his anti-expropriationism, was evidently waiting to see which way the cat would jump in Washington. Camacho has boasted that he will dine in the White House some time this month--and Washington has denied it. If he does, it will probably mean the end of Almazanismo.

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