Outcome in Doubt

The last sweeping promises of reform were made, the screaming loudspeakers were switched off, the chanting supporters had left the plazas. Peru's 2,222,926 registered voters submitted themselves to the most elaborate anti-fraud safeguards in the country's history and then cast their votes for a new President from among three leading candidates: Victor Raul Haya de la Torre, 67, founder of the longoutlawed, Marxist-turned-moderate APRA Party; Fernando Belaunde Terry, 49, a wellborn, highly nationalistic architect who narrowly lost the 1956 presidential elections; and Manuel Odria, 64, Dictator-President of Peru from 1950 to 1956, who is remembered for both his strong arm and liberal public works.

"I Predict Victory." As the polls closed, Belaunde and his staff gathered tensely in his discreetly lavish home in the well-to-do Lima suburb of San Isidro.

A maid passed cheese sandwiches and whisky; a portable radio sputtered with the early returns. At a table in a corner, the president of Belaunde's Action Popular Party sat at a telephone listening to the party's own reckoning of its vote.

By Belaunde's figures, he was the clear winner. An hour before midnight, before the count reached 200,000 and 10% of the vote, Belaunde sat at a typewriter, pecked out a victory statement with two fingers, and drove to the studios of Lima's Channel 13. At 11:30 the movie in progress faded out, and Belaunde's handsome face appeared. "I am able to predict our definitive victory," he announced.

"We'll See." In the high-ceilinged living room of a downtown Lima mansion.

APRA Chieftain Haya de la Torre stared in disbelief at the TV screen. The election was not going as well as expected, but APRA's figures did not bear out Belaunde's snap victory claim. "Wait till the solid north comes in," Haya muttered. "Then we'll see." He went to a phone. A few minutes later, he came back, pointed at the TV set and said.

"Manolo will be on in a few minutes." Haya's silver-haired vice-presidential candidate. Manuel Seoane, soon appeared to deny that Belaunde--or anyone else--could claim victory so soon.

Seoane's caution was justified not only that first night, but throughout the week that followed. Peru's 144 provinces are divided into 1,500 governing districts, half of them so remote that there is no road to the outside world. As the returns trickled in by horse, burro, llama and boat, each party and every major newspaper interpreted them to suit its fancy.

At week's end Belaunde's Action Popular gave his total as 593.759, some 29,000 ahead of Haya. APRA's figures showed Haya with 546,407, ahead of Belaunde by 34,000 votes. The closest thing to an impartial estimate was in ex-Premier Pedro Beltran's La Prensa: Haya, 586,000 (32.75%); Belaunde, 579,000 (32.32%); Odria, 500,800 (27.95%). It would probably be three weeks before the last votes were counted officially.

If the official tally bears out La Prensa's projection, with Haya ahead but with less than one-third of the vote, choice of the new President will be decided under the constitution by an absolute majority of the new Congress--whose makeup also remains in doubt. Over everything looms the shadow of Peru's army, bitterly anti-Haya since his revolutionary days in the 19305. By its own arithmetic last week, the army declared Fernando Belaunde the winner. If Haya should be the victor, but by a narrow majority, there are veiled indications that the army will prevent his installation.

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