Human Weaknesses

Nobody can say that Marshal Josip Broz, known these days as Tito, President and dictator of Yugoslavia, does not hold elections. Last week Tito held elections. The country's 10 million-odd voters swarmed to 25,000 polling places and elected 282 parliamentary deputies. For 265 of the parliamentary posts there was only one candidate. Tito himself was unopposed.

All candidates, even the opposition, had previously passed a stern screening for suitability by the government. Among reasons given for refusing certain candidates permission to run: trying to win votes from people who are "dissatisfied with this thing and that"; receiving support from "elements with hostile dispositions"; soliciting support from "rich peasants"; being blinded by "bureaucratic ideas"; "human weaknesses."

Tito, who has improved the lot of his people somewhat in the past year (production and wages are up, the secret police are not so evident), had anticipated criticism of his one-party elections by foreigners. Said he: "Comrades, I would like to say a few words about our democratization. I know those abroad will say, as they have always said: 'But this is a one-party system!' We have explained hundreds of times . . . why in this country there cannot be what exists in their countries. According to my opinion, in our present stage of development . . . this would look just as if somebody had constructed a new automobile and then had it drawn with horses . . . Their democracy does not suit us; it is an obsolete democracy, which, however good it was in coming after the feudal system, has outlived itself."

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