Word: coihueco
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...March election, Chile's Chamber of Deputies was split right down the middle: 73 for the government of President Carlos Ibafiez, 73 for the combined opposition. The. first by-election would obviously give one side a slender advantage. Last week it fell to the village (pop. 100) of Coihueco, at the foot of the snowy Andes 250 miles south of Santiago, to pick one more Deputy for Congress...
Business Boom. Coihueco's election was held because the balloting there in March had been voided by irregularities. The complex mechanics of the substitute election sharpened the drama. Each of the two leading candidates needed only some of Coihueco's votes (added to votes already won elsewhere in the electoral district) to top the required minimum "quotient." Government Candidate Serafin Soto needed only 150 of the voters, who numbered 1,194, including neighboring farmers. Opposition Candidate Juan Luis Urrutia needed...
While all Chile watched for a week, 140 politicos poured into Coihueco to electioneer. The supply of fowl for the favorite local dish, cazuela de pava (turkey casserole), quickly ran out. and the wineshop had to replenish its stocks three times. The two spinsters who own Coihueco's only telephone took to their beds with aspirin, while reporters endlessly cranked the phone's old-style bell magneto. Business boomed. "Ah, to have elections every month!" said the merchants...
...cash. Everywhere, talk turned to the price of a vote. "I wanted 300 pesos [$3]," an old man was heard to say, "but they offered me only 230. There is no limit to the way they abuse the common people." The atmosphere of barter infected all Coihueco. Cabled TIME Correspondent Mario Planet: "I had to give 10 pesos to a little girl before she would tell me my way on a street. When I asked her another question, she demanded 10 more - just like a Coke machine." On election day, voters went straight from polling places to the payoff agents...
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