Word: copei
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...congress which would write Venezuela a new constitution and choose a President. To insure victory, the junta months ago planted a government party, lovingly fertilized with treasury money. The only opposition permitted by the junta came from minority parties: the Democratic Republican Union (U.R.D.) and the Christian Socialists (nicknamed Copei). But with a fourth of the 2,000,000 votes counted, U.R.D. (which had never polled more than 55,000 votes since its founding in 1946) was leading the government 294,000 to 147,000, with Copei close behind. Censorship cut off further accurate returns, but snippets of news indicated...
...through clandestine radio transmitters went new orders to A.D. members: to try to beat the junta, vote for Copei in two conservative regions, and for U.R.D. everywhere else. That was where the totally unexpected landslide of U.R.D. votes apparently came from. It was true that Pérez Jiménez was not yet unhorsed. But through his clumsy seizure of the presidency, he had placed himself and Venezuela further than ever from the democratic respectability they crave...
...junta Independent Electoral Front (F.E.I.) was pitted against a pair of opposition parties, the Social Christian COPEI and the leftish Democratic Republican Union (U.R.D.). Bossed by owlish Colonel Marcos Perez Jimenez, the junta harassed the opposition, jailed its leaders, censored its press. COPEI and U.R.D. reluctantly entered the race in hope of getting a few seats...
When the first 332,000 votes were counted, U.R.D. had a 2-to-1 edge over the government party, with COPEI trailing. Was a government defeat, entirely unexpected, in prospect? The junta, which had kept the Caracas papers from printing the early returns, suddenly clamped its censorship on all outgoing news cables...
...make it easier for the illiterate, the ballot of each party was a different color: white for Acción Democrática,, green for COPEI, brown for the tiny URD, red for the Communists, black for the dissident Miquelena Communists...