Italy's Moot Relay

...DC: Yes, or else...

...It is staffetta, whose literal meaning is "relay race...

...Article 92 of the Constitution notwithstanding, Italian presidents have almost always made their choice in accordance with the suggestions of participating party leaders...

...THREATENING THE COALITION Italy's Moot Relay BY SILVIO F. SENIGALLIA Rome Italy 's picturesque political lingo has a new term that appears quite frequently these days on the front pages of the newspapers...

...The DCs still constitute this country's largest party, followed by the Communists, and they understandably want one of their own back at the head of the government...

...The July pact, in their view, merely sanctioned the principle of alternating prime ministers...

...The term was invoked by an imaginative reporter last July, after the five parties of the governing coalition resolved a 32-day political crisis by agreeing to participate in a new but very similar government with the proviso that Socialist (PSI) Prime Minister Bettino Craxi stay on the job until March 1987, and then hand over the office to a Christian Democrat (DC...

...The DCs believe it is imperative for them to recoup Palazzo Chigi as soon as possible...

...They agree that Craxi will step down when he deems the situation propitious, but tend to deny the existence of an agreement on a specific deadline...

...the Socialists want to map their post-staffetta party line before giving up the driver's seat...

...In the present case, however, the "suggestion" confronted President Francesco Cossi-ga with a fait accompli—eight months ahead of time, no less...

...Indeed, where thecountry is concerned, it would be best if the parties were able to convince themselves and the public the coalition still has a reason to exist...

...but it is not big enough to offset a feckless performance...

...Under the present circumstances, he said, his party could not assume any commitment with regard to either the rotation of the prime ministership or participation in future coalition governments...

...What is all-important, they add, is the survival of the coalition formula—personalities and posts must come second...

...And all this is bound to create further instability, instead of an atmosphere favorable to coexistence and collaboration...

...National Secretary Cir-iaco De Mita is clearly reluctant to leave party headquarters, the source of his power...

...Other commentators feel it would be a serious mistake for the Christian Democrats to take over the prime minister's office at the tail end of the present session of Parliament—on the virtual eve, that is, of the campaign for national elections (to be held no later than spring 1988...

...With early elections a distinct possibility (even though every party has recorded its opposition to dissolving Parliament), the political leaders are inevitably preoccupied with questions of prestige and strategy...

...Doubts started to surface as early as last summer's Parliamentary recess: Some political analysts, pointing to Craxi's domineering personality and love of power, voiced the opinion that the Christian Democrats would have quite a job getting him out of Palazzo Chigi, the beautiful Renaissance palace where Italian prime ministers have their office...

...As for Craxi himself, his is the studied attitude of the statesman too busy running the country to bother with the premature evaluation of future matters...

...Yet the main problem with the'staf-fetta hinges not on constitutional niceties but on its feasibility...

...And Foreign Minister Giulio Andreotti, while unquestionably well-qualified to head the government, has in his 40 years of political prominence accumulated a number of influential enemies...

...The pre-electoral turmoil would hinder enactment of any program that might be decided upon once the new government is formed, and the DCs could hardly expect any help from a Socialist Party eager that Craxi's leadership be missed...

...For several months the minor parties in the coalition government—the centrist Liberals (PLI) and the moderately leftist Social Democrats (PSDI) and Republicans (PRI)—abstained from the staffetta debate, giving the impression they intended to maintain equal distance from the contending Christian Democrats and Socialists...

...The Socialists, by contrast, are vague on the future of the coalition...

...Unlike the athletic competition, in which a contestant carries a wooden baton and must pass it to a succeeding runner of the same team, the object to be passed along in the Italian political version of the sport is the prime ministership, and the recipient is supposed to be a rival in a different party...

...Disingenuous or not, the DCs want to make certain the present alliance, viewed as the only one that can keep the Communists out of the government, will endure beyond 1988...

...Spadolini's "electric shock" (as he termed it) to the government has to be seen against the background of his likely fear that a successful bilateral DC-PSI agreement would weaken his party's—and his own—mediating role, thus eroding Republican electoral appeal...

...Silvio F. Senigallia reports regularly for The New Leader on Italian affairs...

...Meanwhile, everyone here is awaiting the nth clarification of relations among the government's feuding allies...

...PSI: Yes, but...

...The unprecedented July 29 arrangement may be unconstitutional, because the President of the Republic has the prerogative of picking the prime minister...

...Suddenly, last November 28, Defense Minister and PRI Leader Giovanni Spadolini—a brilliant academic who 10 years or so ago turned into an ambitious and resdess politician—rocked the boat with a vengeance...

...As March 31 draws near, nobody really knows whether conditions will be conducive to Craxi's more or less voluntary resignation and replacement by a Christian Democrat...

...Christian Democrats keep saying they are sure Craxi will keep his word...

...In a rather unconvincing subsequent comment he insisted that he did not want to bring about a government crisis...

...It was also observed that difficulties existed with the two obvious Christian Democrat candidates...

...He merely intended to sound a timely warning, he said, before it was too late to put the coalition back in shape...

...the minor parties feel the need to reappraise their positions so that they will not be damaged by the competition between the DC and the PSI...

...The DCs, it will be recalled, dominated Italian postwar politics and governments until this decade when they lost the top position first to Republican (PRI) leader Giovanni Spadolini and later to Craxi...

...Whether the Center-Left coalition that has been running Italy since July 1983 can survive the March 31 test and even limp along until 1988 is anyone's guess...

...Nevertheless the differing attitudes that the two parties directly involved in the switch deal have shown toward its implementation might be summed up as follows...

...True, command of the government at election time is a big asset...

...The custom has its logic, since a prime minister unwelcome to members of Parliament from his own party and its allies would never receive the required vote of confidence...

...But given that the various parties are polemicizing over whether the alliance can be salvaged with a modicum of unity and joint determination, nobody expects this nation's many unsolved problems— ranging from tax reform to nuclear energy to religious education in public schools —to be efficiently tackled between now and the end of March...

...That does not seem to greatly trouble the nation's leading politicians, though...

...Addressing the National Council of his party, he denounced the government's failure to achieve any of the "must" objectives outlined in the July agreement, lamented the "disgregation of the state" and warned that only "a rapid clarification of the political picture would prevent the PRI from leaving the team before the end-of-March transition...