Public Nuisance

Five restless weeks have passed since election day in Peru. Since no presidential candidate won the constitutionally required 33.33% of the vote, the three leading candidates have been sparring for office ever since. With so much at stake and the country divided by past feuds and violence, the wonder is that Peru has remained so peaceful. Last week one of three candidates gave way under the pressure and made a reckless bid for power.

Fernando Belaunde has been crying fraud ever since he finished 14,000 votes behind the controversial Haya de la Torre. Knowing that powerful army leaders fear Haya from his earlier days as a flaming leftist, he counted on the army to rally behind him. He journeyed from the capital of Lima to the mountain city of Arequipa, and after instructing a crowd of 6,000 supporters to raise barricades around his campaign headquarters he demanded the appointment of a "tribunal of honor" to revise the election results-- otherwise he would fight. "In case the government does not comply," he cried, "we will be compelled to overthrow it and punish it for its misdeeds."

But the army did not rally to his side. Outgoing President Manuel Prado had taken precautions against a coup, spending most of one night at the palace gathering assurances of loyalty from army officers. Lima's Juan Cardinal Landazuri Ricketts also issued an appeal to all leaders to respect "justice, truth and the legal order of the nation." The anti-Haya army generals still blustered, but when the respected National Elections Court rejected the charges of fraud against Hava's supporters, the generals assured the Elections Court: "We acknowledge the power that the constitution and the elections statute confer upon the high and autonomous institution over which you preside."

Obviously no one except Belaunde had much stomach for a test of arms. Last week, backers of Haya got together with the camp of the third presidential candidate, ex-Dictator Manuel Odria, and reached an "agreement in principle" to form a national union government. Together they would have a majority in Congress when it convenes next week to settle the split election. Rumors buzzed that Haya might agree to step aside in favor of Odria as President, but that Haya's APRA Party would have the major say in the Cabinet. A coalition government headed by two such diverse men as Haya, the fiery old revolutionary, and Odria, the conservative old strongman, would be a strange solution indeed. But it seemed to give more promise of stability for Peru than did Belaunde's barricaded mob in Arequipa, drinking pisco and making bonfires at night to keep warm. One city official in Arequipa thought that Belaunde's mob "looks more like a public nuisance than a revolution."

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