Up U Nu

With a delicacy rare in hard-fought elections, the ballyhoo men in the wagons that roved through Rangoon's streets all one night last week apologized humbly for disturbing the voters' sleep. But their loudspeakers kept on blaring just the same, extolling hour after hour the virtues of Premier U Nu's Anti-Fascist People's Freedom League. Next day, with the help of virtually every available automobile in town, the party workers were as busy as well-trained Tammany heelers getting out the vote. Carloads of voters were hauled to the polls after a brief stopover to check their enrollment at a straw-thatched party field headquarters conveniently located near by, and when the votes were cast, they were whisked back again to headquarters for a cooling drink and sometimes a basket lunch.

When it was all over, some 4,000,000 Burmese had turned out to vote in the eight-year-old republic's second national election. Able Premier U Nu, whose party already controls 86% of the nation's 250-seat Chamber of Deputies, had once again won a handy victory over the Communist-dominated opposition, most of whose efforts had been concentrated in trying to win a single district in Rangoon. When even that seat appeared to be going to the Freedom League, election commissioners cautiously decided to delay announcing the victory until a mob of students, waiting with weapons in hand outside the city hall, had been dispersed.

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