On the Cliff

For almost three years Colombia's silver-haired Mariano Ospina Perez has walked some of the steepest political cliffs in Latin America. Not once have his judgment, his courage and his silken poise failed him. A Conservative who reached the presidency because of a split in the Liberal Party, he has had to govern with a Liberal majority in the Congress and with a coalition cabinet. Ospina brushed off diehard Conservative pressure to crush the opposition by high-handed use of his powers. Last year, when enraged followers of assassinated Liberal Chieftain Jorge Eliecer Gaitan sacked his capital, Ospina refused Liberal demands for his resignation. Though snipers peppered his Bogota office from nearby steeples and buildings, he sat imperturbably at his desk. "Better for Colombia a dead President," he said, "than for me to run away."

Pressure mounted again as last week's congressional elections approached. Throughout the campaign, Conservatives and Liberals in country districts fought it out with knife and gun (TIME, June 6). Conservatives could not understand why Ospina himself did not use force to win the election. Liberals, fearful that a Conservative triumph now would lead to a Conservative presidential victory next year, tried to embarrass the President by withdrawing their men from his cabinet.

Ospina, with army men replacing some of the departed Liberals, kept his promise of a fair election. Compared to the preelection bloodshed, in which some 200 people were killed, the election went off with unexpected order. Seven men were killed on election day. When the results began coming in, mild-mannered Ospina Perez knew that his ordeal was not ended. The Liberals led by more than 100,000 votes. They again controlled both houses of Congress, but unofficial returns cut their lower house majority from 15 to eight. At week's end, the President still had to choose between inviting the Liberals back into his cabinet or asking the army men to accompany him the rest of the way along the edge of his political precipice.

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