Snorts & Shouts

In the ring, big Holstein-Friesian bulls stomped and snorted while cows lowed mournfully in the stalls. Quito was having a cattle show and Ecuador's best of breed were on display. In the thick of the herd, a curly-haired farmer named Galo Plaza Lasso was qualifying entries, arguing with the judges, describing the show over a microphone. He had organized the exposition, and at the moment it interested him more than the fact that three days earlier he had been on top in Ecuador's presidential election.

Few Ecuadorian politicos matched Galo Plaza's calm. After eight years of revolution & counterrevolution, and five Presidents (only one of whom was elected), the country had finally had a rootin', tootin' reasonable facsimile of a U.S.-style campaign ; it had ended in a fairly honest election. The unofficial tally: Independent Galo Plaza, 116,496; Conservative Manuel Elicio Flor, 112,509; Liberal Alberto Enriquez, 56,942. Even so, Galo Plaza was not necessarily the President-elect.

The Supreme Electoral Court in a punctilious check of the voting was throwing out ballots by the armful. Sample court legalism: all of the ballots deposited in one Quito polling place (the President and Vice President voted there) were discredited because the voting had begun five minutes early.

If Plaza's victory was finally confirmed (the court would not give a final verdict for a month), Ecuador would get a bustling administration that would go slow on social reform, drive hard to put the country on a solid business basis. Moreover, Plaza has been around enough (he studied at the University of California, was ambassador to the U.S.) to know something about getting the foreign help that Ecuador desperately needs. If the court decides for Flor--well, Plaza might win anyhow. "If they try to deprive us of victory by such means," threatened a Plaza subaltern, "blood will flow."

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