Dr. Salazar The one purpose of the elections held this
Sunday in Portugal seems to have been to proclaim publicly the dictatorial nature and the restricted popular basis of Dr. Salazar's regime. Dictators often make use of elections for peculiar ends, but none are quite so peculiar as Dr. Salazar's. Prior to the election he had decided that the time had come to relax the restrictions imposed on political activity and to permit the existence of an organised opposition which should play its part in the holding of free elections. The opposition proved so strong that Dr. Salazar hastily re-established the political censorship ; but he persisted in holding the elections even though as a result the opposition had boycotted them. The population of Portugal is some 8,000,000 ; of these some 44,00o have the right to vote; and of these 52 per cent. went to the polls in support of Dr. Salazar. Even though the elections were held in the worst storms Portugal has known for many years, Dr. Salazar can hardly be content with the low proportion of the very restricted %lectorate which was willing to testify on behalf of his Government ; but it is another of his peculiarities that he does not even seem to wish for one of those overwhelming votes of confidence which are the commonest tributes paid by dictatorship to democracy. With a candour refreshing in these days he has explained that he considers party programmes irreconcilable with a national programme, and that the two pillars on which his Government rests are a competent bureaucracy and a policy drawn up by professional experts. The rest of the nation he dismisses as political amateurs. Dr. Salazar has the virtues of honesty and frankness ; he does not pretend to the virtues of being democratic nor does he consider them virtues.
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