REPRODUCED AT THE NATIONAL ARCHIVES. DECLASSIFIED Althority Stateletter Mhz Ey meNARA Date 24 18 from 6, 500 to 12, 000 votes for the COMMUNISTS in the elections of February 9, 1936. If the COMMUNIST vote is only relatively as heavy as it was in 1934, they will malect three or four additional Deputies. consider this quite likely.
The BHECHISTAS now apparently see no hope of obtaining a majority of the votes cast in the next elections; they will not admit, however, that the CORTESISTAS will obtain a majority either. Their belief apparently is that neither party will obtain the necessary majority of the votes cast, thereby making necessary second elections on April 1, 1936 to choose between the two candidates obtaining the largest number of votes on February 9th.
The CORTESISTAS claim to have the elections in the bag. but individual members of the party have told me during the past week that it is quite probable that second elections will be necessary to elect a President.
The BEECHISTAS pretend to believe that in the second elections the COMMUNISTS will vote for Octavio Beeche in order to defeat their avowed enemy León Cortés, and that therefore Beeche will be the next President of Costa Rica. It is evident from publications in the Communist newspaper TRABAJO and from speeches by the COMMUNISTS that their chief concern is León Cortés and that they pay little attention