Someone to Love

On the platform, he stands rigidly erect through the introductory speeches, eyes closed, almost as if he were conducting a seance. When his turn comes, the words float out like messianic balm. "We must fight Communism but also reaction. We have a weapon against poverty and other ills -- democracy." It sounds standard enough, but in Panama, Arnulfo Arias, 62, has the touch. When he spoke in Colon (pop. 60,000), 15,000 people turned out to cheer. On a muddy field in San Miguelito, 2,500 followers swarmed worshipfully around his white station wagon. Twice Arias has been elected President of Panama. Twice he was deposed. And still he is the man to beat a third time around in the country's May 10 elections.

Panamanians generally take their politicians with a large dose of salt. Most are rich and out of touch. Arias fits the mold -- but only part way. Now a wealthy coffee planter, he started out as a Harvard-trained physician, then switched to politics in 1931, helping overthrow President Florencio Arosemena. A year later Arias' brother Harmodio was elected President, and one of Arnulfo's prizes was an ambassadorship to Italy. By 1939, he was running for President himself. And there he departed from the formula.

In & Out. Instead of the usual dry, duty speeches, Arias gave them fiery histrionics, pie-in-the-sky promises, violent attacks on the U.S. and its presence in Panama. He won by a landslide. In office, he soon started acting like an Axis ally. He harassed and baited the U.S., set high school students goose-stepping through Panama City and wrote a new, totalitarian constitution. Within a year, the national police and his political enemies booted him out. He came back to power in 1949, went out again after 18 months -- this time for organizing his own secret police and trying to reinstate his totalitarian constitution. "When he got in office," explains one aide, "something happened in his head. I just hope it won't happen this time."

Arias insists that it will not. "The world has changed," he says, "and I have changed with it." While he still preaches fervent nationalism, he has tempered his anti-U.S. sentiments. ("He may still kick us in the teeth," says one U.S. official, "but he'll be wearing tennis shoes, not riding boots.") He condemns incumbent President Roberto Chiari for his handling of the recent canal crisis; on the Alianza, he promises to invite a "watchdog delegation from the U.S. to work with Panamanians."

Beyond that, Arias is studiously vague. "The world," he preaches, "is topsy-turvy. The ones who have must give." Among his slogans: "Every man deserves work, shelter, and somebody to love."

Enemies All Around. In the election, Arias will go up against two main opponents: Marco Robles, 58, who is supported by President Chiari, who cannot succeed himself, and Juan de Arco Galindo, 53, the favorite of Panama's upper crust and of a few groups that split with Chiari. Both Robles and Galindo are sound-alike moderates; they promise more public spending, more foreign investment, and a few other polite reforms. But they cannot promise it quite like Arias.

Arias supporters predict that their man will win a two-thirds majority. But the government is strongly against Arias as a former fascist-style politician, and Chiari could always postpone the voting or the electoral board could declare the results "inconclusive," thus blocking Arias from office. There are other ways of handling elections in Panama. "When it is important enough," says one Robles supporter, "money can buy the votes to keep a man like that out. We've got the money."

No one is sure just where Panama's National Guard stands at the moment. Last fall Colonel Bolivar Vallarino, commander of the 3,000-man Guard, swore that Arnulfo Arias would never again be President of Panama. But last week Colonel Vallarino denied that his soldiers would ever intervene. "If Arnulfo gets the votes," said Vallarino, "he will get the office."

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