Buenos Aires Politics

Horowhenua Chronicle, 26 August 1916, Page 3

Buenos Aires Politics

AN INFORMATIVE DESCRIPTION. (From a London Times' Correspondent-.) Buenos Aires, April 2. :ln politic* in the Argentine you are either red-hot or stone-cold. 'lhe majority are stone-cold, but the red-hot minority are so perfervid that a rospectbale average of excitement :s maintained at election time.

The franchise rests on the ha sis of universal male suffrage, confined to natural-born and naturalised Argentine subjects of eighteen years of age and over. This privilege of citizenship is apparently more highly valued by the State than hv the individual, for the State lias Jpund it necessary to impose a tine represented by eighteen fibilliiigs upon the citizen unable to produce proof of having fulfilled his obligation, tlie proof consisting of a comprehensive document which conveniently includes under one cover evidence of bSrth, military service, marriage, and other civic functions. To-day has taken place one of the 1 most keenly-contested elections in the history of the republic, with an absence of fatal accidents that has called forth surprised and pleased comments from the newspaper press, and wliicTi is hailed as the death-knell of "the goorl old days." The casualties all over the republic are estimated at only 40 or oO killed. The British community is as a rule as indifferent to the election as it is to the use of the subjunctive mood in the .Spanish language. In the present case a certain amount of interest is natural!v aroused by the rival possibilities of a pro-German or pro-Allies president. For this election is. though not directly. For the citizen who during the vcars l!>l<i-192:2 sliall hold the office, of president of the republic, which wi'd_ be determined by the members of the Electoral College, the 300 members of the Electoral College who are chosen at the polls to-day. AH Ministers are in theory secretaries to the President, each in his own particular Department—lnterior, Public Works, Finance, Foreign Affairs, etc.. All resign at the conclusion of the term of office of the President. Not only the chief political office-holders, but a,lst the chief municipal dignitaries, such as the mayor, chiet of police, chief of the public health department, and others, resign simultaneously. And as all these are, de- riguer. accompanied into retirement by their respective secretaries and nominees, it may bo seen there is a great re6huffling of <ip

pointments. The critical onlooker is disposed to trace a' connection between this fact and the extraordinary political energy displayed by those who can apparently ill spare the time from their normal vocations. if indeed they do" possess these. I asked a prominent "Radical this morning what were the chief planks in the program of his party. ""We must undo/' ho told me, "practically everything that the present (Conservative) Administration has done." '■Hut what is it exactly," 1 asked "Unit tliey have done " "Their whole period has been characterised by complete inactivity, in every direction ; by an entire absence of legislation, internal and external."