Days before Lent

After the election came carnival. Posters blaring announcements of fiesta dances encroached on the tattered billboard images of Peron and Tamborini. Argentines who could afford it rushed off to the villas and casino of Mar del Plata. Yet Argentina, recovering slowly from the calmest election day--and bitterest campaign--in its history, was hardly in a carnival mood. It was still dazed. Juan Pueblo, the man on the Buenos Aires street corner, contemplating the strange, post-election calm, said "Parece raro--Seems funny."

The Army, which had policed the elections, stayed on the job. In the 14 provinces soldiers stood guard while Government employes counted ballots in the presence of party representatives and newsmen. By week's end barely 10% of the vote had been tallied.

All returns for crucial Buenos Aires province (88 of the 376 electoral votes) were postponed till six small precincts, whose votes had been thrown out for possible fraud, could reballot next Sunday. Though Peron led, the tardy 88 votes could conceivably swing the balance back to Democratic Opponent Tamborini.

No matter who won the Presidency, Strong Man Juan Peron promised to remain the Strong Man of Argentina. His new Labor party piled up votes in working-class districts. It won seat after seat in Congress, even capturing all lesser offices in San Luis province which Tamborini had carried. If Tamborini by some miracle beat Peron, he would probably be confronted with a hostile Congress and unfriendly provincial governments.

The U.S. State Department's attitude toward Peron was not likely to change. That attitude was founded on evidence, printed in last month's Blue Book, that Juan Peron. had been hand-in-glove with U.S. enemies in World War II. But with Peron the winner, his country's presence at the proposed Rio conference of American republics would be embarrassing to all, and most to the U.S. Prospects that the conference would meet this month--or even this spring--were growing dim.

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