STALEMATE.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXIV, Issue 925, 21 November 1933, Page 1

STALEMATE.

Spanish Elections Result. COMMUNISTS INCENSED. United Press Assn. —By Electric Telegraph—Copyright. (Received November 21, 11.30 a.m.) MADRID, November 20. Candidates elected include all Marshal de Rivera’s Fascist deputies, Senor Barreto, director of Fascist newspaper, and also Count Romanones and Premier Barrios, while those defeated include Senor Albornoz, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Senor Avello, Minister of the Interior, and Senor Feced, Minister of Agriculture. So far'2l9 out of 473 seats have been filled. The election appears to have ended in a stalemate. The Socialists, Communists and Extremists are incensed at the verdict, some declaring that a revolution is still coming, and that thye will fight it out in the streets if the election decision is adverse. Women Voters. This is the first election of the ordinary Cortes since the establishment of the Republic. The presence of women, enfrancised for the first time, enlivened the proceedings. All day the streets were crowded, there being long queues outside every polling booth, in which women largely preponderated. The crowds in the capital were mostly orderly. Elaborate police precautions were taken in every city. There were armed guards at every booth, and lorries on which were mounted machine-guns at all strategic points. Mounted police patrolled the streets. There were many serious clashes between rival factions in the provincial cities. A Right Wing election agent was shot dead, and several others were seriously wounded in Valencia, where thirty-five people were arrested after the discovery of a store of bombs, dynamite and firearms. One man was killed and seven wounded in Seville, when twenty anarchists, brandishing revolvers, shot at point-blank range at a number of Right Wing polling officers who were going on duty. One man was killed and two wounded at Torrente, where Socialists attempted to break the ballot boxes. A nephew of the prior of the Montserrat Monastery was seriously wounded when a gunman shot into a car in which he was taking a number of monks to the poll. Second Ballot Necessary. It is officially stated that owing to the confused situation, advance intimation of the election returns is impossible, and a second ballot will be necessary in 35 out of the total of 49 provinces. Apparently the Conservatives are level in Madrid, and the Radicals are far behind, but even here a second count on December 3 will probably be necessary as it is uncertain whether any candidate has obtained 40 per cent of the votes necessary for an election. Meanwhile each party claims a victory based on purely artificial figures. Estimates of the state cf the parties must be purely conjectural.