Front Runners

By firm constitutional provision, Adolfo Ruiz Cortines may not succeed himself as President of Mexico. By equally firm tradition, he can pick the candidate who will probably win the election. Some time in the next two months, President Ruiz Cortines will make the choice after a round of crucial but secret talks with former Presidents, Cabinet members, governors and generals--plus a long and lonely conversation with himself. The winner's name will gradually leak out, and he will be nominated when the all-powerful Party of Revolutionary Institutions (P.R.I.) meets late this year. On the first Sunday of July 1958, Mexico will elect the chosen man. By last week political insiders could furnish a clear profile of this man, and were offering shrewd guesses as to his name.

Fit the Mold. In Mexico the candidate's religious views may range from Catholicism to atheism, but he will not be a Protestant. He may be privately pro-U.S. (as is Ruiz Cortines, who has periodic friendly telephone chats with President Eisenhower), but publicly he must be reserved. His political views must not be too far right or he will lose the support of ex-President Lazaro Cardenas (1934-40), who expropriated foreign oil holdings and launched ambitious land reforms. They must not be too far left or he will not have the support of ex-President Miguel Aleman (1946-52), who guided Mexican politics back to the middle of the road. Membership in the current Cabinet is almost essential. Three men fit this mold well enough to qualify for the slang adjective of presidenciable:

ANGEL BERNAL CARBAJAL, 57, is the President's closest friend and a "man with no bite." Like Aleman and Ruiz Cortines, Carbajal is a native of Veracruz and now holds the patronage-heavy post of Interior Minister. A onetime professor of history and Supreme Court justice, he is bald, calm and personable.

GILBERTO FLORES MUNOZ, 55, is the toiling, famously honest Minister of Agriculture. Flores Munoz directed Ruiz' 1952 campaign, has since cracked down on corruption and launched ambitious new projects in his department. He is also a tub-thumping politician.

DR. IGNACIO MORONES PRIETO, 57, is the Minister of Public Health and Welfare. A man with powerful friends in the government, Morones Prieto has reaped praise for his all-out campaign against malaria and for his smooth handling of the most comprehensive welfare-state program.

Second Rank. Behind these three is another trio, still not counted out. Adolfo Lopez Mateos, 47, is the handsome Minister of Labor and Social Welfare, is on close terms with Ruiz Cortines, Cardenas and Aleman, but many politicians feel he should wait for 1964. Finance Minister Antonio Carrillo Flores, 48, has masterminded Mexico's phenomenal economic boom, is generally regarded as the Cabinet's most brilliant member, but is not widely known. Ernesto Uruchurtu, 50, a former Interior Minister and now governor of the Federal District, has made fans through his drastic face lifting of the nation's capital (TIME, Aug. 27). None of the six is doing any public campaigning--contemptuously called futurismo in Mexico--but behind closed doors all are hard at work. In bars, coffee shops and government offices last week, Mexicans were giving long odds that one of the six will, before long, wear the presidential sash.

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