New President, Old Politics in Italy

...In glossing over the DCs early opposition to Pertini and emphasizing the final, virtually unanimous vote, the PCI has shown itself still committed to the "historic compromise" policy...

...Three out of four of the unemployed are young people under 29, of whom 41 per cent are said to have higher education...

...Amendola is 71...

...This is a multifaceted problem that may involve the nation in a vicious circle: Italy is in a recession...

...Prompt reflection needs to be given to the matter, followed by corrective action...

...With the Presidential crisis resolved, the government can no longer postpone action on the single most pressing issue facing the country?namely, the reduction of its inflation rate to the average of the other countries in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, without letting the annual growth rate fall below 3 per cent...

...The all Christian-Democratic Cabinet, led by Prime Minister Giulio Andreotti and backed by a large parliamentary majority including Communists and Socialists, is virtually sure to stay in power unless and until the Left-wing parties bring about a political crisis...

...Democratic centralism is not necessarily a monopoly of the Communists...

...To begin with, Italians could not understand—and were disgusted by?the spectacle of the three major parties that form the current parliamentary majority taking 23 days and 12 meaningless ballots before holding their first joint meeting for the selection of a mutually acceptable candidate capable of guaranteeing the country a minimum of political stability...

...Its previously reluctant chief, Enrico Berlin-guer, switching to an aggressive stand, also denounced the controversial and discredited Leone at the risk of an unwelcome showdown with the Christian Democrats (DC...

...He was thoroughly fed up, he stated, with bearing the brunt of poorly-run government agencies, deficit-ridden industries, phony disabled veterans, and grafting wheeler-dealers buying and selling Hercules planes...

...Their advanced ages served as further evidence that the same small group of professional politicians have run their respective parties, and through these the country, for approximately 30 years...

...The Socialists can rightly be proud of his election, but they cannot expect to reap direct political benefits from it...

...Pertini is a man of unquestionable personal and political integrity, incapable of being influenced...

...In fact, the government should sharply cut back spending in the public sector, where the deficit is now in excess of $30 billion...

...As for the Communists, they are voicing satisfaction over the success of a stalwart anti-Fascist—a "national unity" candidate supported by over 80 per cent of the electoral college...

...Foreign observers, thoroughly puzzled by the behind-the-scenes maneuvering and Byzantine intrigues that surrounded the choice of Pertini, can find a measure of comfort only in the fact that their puzzlement is shared by the overwhelming majority of citizens here...

...Moreover, he added, he could not make a living while being constantly faced with train strikes, erratic plane schedules, undelivered goods and telephones out of order...

...Although constant lip-service is paid to democracy, what this country has is partyo-cracy...

...One doubts, however, that it is anywhere wider than in today's Italy...

...At any rate for the moment, politicians here are devoting their entire attention to assessing the likely impact of Pertini's ascension...

...There is an officially calculated jobless rate of 6.5 per cent...

...Things, in short, will go on as they have been for the past few years...

...The Communists and Socialists, under strong union pressure, are advocating a growth rate in excess of 4 per cent to take up the industrial slack and make a dent in the unemployment situation...

...Yet the indecorous do-nothingness of Parliament, and the squabbling over a successor to Leone, suggest that whatever the degree of awareness of the problem, the party machines are so powerful and entrenched that no changes are likely to be forthcoming...

...Pertini—a former president of the Chamber of Deputies whose main asset is a distinguished anti-Fascist record—is 82 years old...

...Yet in the long run the victory may prove costly, for the electoral skirmishes preceding the vote on Pertini caused some deterioration in Socialist relations with both the Christian Democrats and the Communists...

...The outcome, it is safe to predict, will be a revised 1978 budget that is very much an all-party compromise, and an original plan based on spending cuts and new taxes will be virtually shelved...

...And that will not surprise Signor Repetto, wherever he may be...

...It is, of course, too early to make any predictions about how the personality and ideological background of the new Chief of State will affect the course of affairs...

...But as the Central Bank governor, Paolo Baffi, has pointed out more than once, if inflation is to be reduced, the growth rate cannot be allowed to rise above the 1977 level of 2 per cent...

...Correctly reading the public's mood, the PCI officially requested Leone's resignation...

...The rift between "us" and "them" —that is, between the ordinary citizen on the one hand, and rulers and bureaucrats on the other—exists in every country...

...Nevertheless, the DCs last-minute acceptance of Pertini, the candidate of the entire Leftist bloc, once again demonstrates Andreotti's dependence on PCI and PSI votes, and the fragility of his government...

...His influence may increase...

...Secondly, the people had difficulty comprehending why the electoral college—composed of the nation's legislators and entrusted with the election of the President—wasted so much time while urgent matters awaited Parliament's action before the summer recess...

...By now all political leaders ought to have recognized that the time has come for a major upgrading of Italy's political system...

...The election of a Socialist President was a feather in the cap of PSI Secretary Bettino Craxi...

...AMID WIDESPREAD DISGRUNTLEMENT New President, Old Politics in Italy BY SILVIO F. SENIGALLIA Rome In early June, a hitherto obscure 40-year-old Milanese, Giorgio Repetto, wrote a letter to the editor of the dialy Corriere delta Sera officially announcing that he was going to resign his Italian citizenship and move to another country...

...A prolonged tug-of-war between the Christian Democrats and the Left could have seriously jeopardized the current delicate arrangement at a time when Italy can least afford a new dose of political chaos...

...I do not think that the unceremonious ouster last month of President of the Republic Giovanni Leone—accused by some Leftist papers of corruption, nepotism, bad taste, and singularly bad judgment—has been conducive to changing Signor Repetto's mind...

...A few points, however, have already become evident: ?There is no reason to believe that Pertini will accept the formal resignation of the government, traditionally tendered to a new President...

...This would undermine the competitiveness of Italian exports abroad, while bringing about additional erosion of "real wages" through inflation...

...Republican leader Ugo La Malfa, who coyly disappeared from Rome when the voting began, is 74, and Communist standard bearer Giorgio Silvio F. Senigallia reports regularly for The New Leader from Rome...

...Finally, the age of the candidates, the youngest of whom was well past 60, also drew unfavorable comment...

...What the Communists (PCI) call "forces of social dis-gregation" are at work among Left-wing voters as well...

...Nor is it likely that the subsequent events which resulted in the election of Socialist (PSI) Sandro Pertini to fill the vacant post, have reassured him about the soundness of the country's social structures and level of political morality...

...Still, the unions are pressing for a sharp escalation of wages...

...The former resent the way the Socialists arrogantly vetoed any DC candidate proposed, while the latter do not relish the PSI's new third-force role, aimed at driving a wedge between the two major parties...

...This discontent with the party system and the general political immorality that the Leone affair highlighted, it should be noted, is not restricted to moderate voters...

...Let the parasites he had supported for 24 years find themselves another sucker...