Machine Derailed

As the first voters trooped to polling places to elect Guatemala City's mayor, Humberto Gonzalez Juarez, the official candidate, foresightedly stocked up on Scotch for a victory party. That he might lose was scarcely thinkable; Gonzalez

Juarez had a big election fund and hundreds of campaign workers, plus the warm support of President Jacobo Arbenz, the pro-government leftist parties and the Communists. He did have one worry: his house might be too small for a proper post-election celebration.

The voting, under Guatemalan law, went on for three days. But last week, after the National Election Board had counted the ballots, Gonzalez Juarez called off his party. He had been trounced. The winner, by 24,466 votes to 19,306, was Juan Luis Lizarralde (TIME, Nov. 26).

Mayor-Elect Lizarralde, 37, is a big, earnest man who talks quietly and infrequently. One of Guatemala's top civil engineers, Lizarralde had built streets, sewers and a sound reputation in Guatemala City. In politics, he was a blue-eyed innocent who had never run for office before. During his campaign he took a firm stand against letting the city "fall into the hands of grafting Red demagogues," got out to meet the voters informally, and let others do most of the speechmaking.

It was a measure of Guatemala City's anti-Communist feeling that this semiprofessional campaign could so handily derail the government machine. But such diverse groups as university students, Indian market women, landowners and small businessmen have been increasingly mortified at their country's Red-splashed reputation. These anti-Communist groups, uniting to vote for Lizarralde, handed the government the first significant ballot-box rejection of its leftward trend since 1948. "In the capital, even the cobblestones are anti-Communist," explained Lizarralde. "I consider my victory a great triumph for democracy."

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