Italian Parties Open Campaign
CICCOTTI, SIGFRIDO
Election set for May 25 italian parties open campaign By Sigfrido Ciccotti Rome After lengthy debate in the press and political circles, Giovanni Gronchi, President of the Italian Republic,...
...But the campaign has just started, and it is too early to make forecasts...
...At this point, it seems unlikely that the election will bring any basic changes in the relative standing of the various major parties...
...its daily muttered something about "too late'' (in fact, there were two weeks left to place candidates on...
...Rossi has not yet received an answer...
...Television will be almost completely absent from this campaign...
...It is evident that the PSI thus made a choice, preferring the Communists to the Social Democrats...
...An indication of its political level is the candidacy of Fabrizio Ciano, grandson of Benito Mussolini and son of his former Foreign Minister Galeazzo Ciano, whom the dictator had shot for treason in Verona in 1943...
...The Communists, as in the past, will capitalize on the discontent arising out of privation and illiteracy...
...Constitutionally, such conflict can empower the President to dissolve both houses...
...In dissolving both houses, President Gronchi was not obliged to—and did not —state his reasons...
...But, irrespective of who wins in the end, Nenni's party will certainly have difficulty in making its schizophrenic attitude clear to the voters...
...A subtle game is being played by these two men...
...Party secretary Amintore Fanfani has announced that 100 movie-trucks are ready to bring Christian Democratic propaganda to the remotest villages...
...Instead of the 70-day election campaign established by the Constitution, there would have been 335 days of demagogic extravagance...
...The majority of PSI functionaries remain pro-Communist, and Nenni's tactical philosophy seems inspired by the old motto: "As I am their leader, I must follow them...
...In a speech at Milan opening the campaign, Saragat emphasized that his party will concentrate on the necessity of modernizing the obsolete structure of Italian economic life...
...The Christian Democrats will point with pride at the record of their rule during the last ten years...
...Quite irrespective of what Nenni plans to do after the elections, the PSI machine is preparing to arrange joint Senatorial tickets with the Communists in Sardinia, Lucania, Abruzzi and perhaps elsewhere...
...or even to the Liberal party, a conservative group which has begun a lively campaign in favor of the traditions of the Risorgimento and the separation oi Church and state...
...In the first such election since 1953, 32 million Italian voters will choose 596 Deputies and 224 Senators...
...The other half, including Nenni, are working to achieve unity with the Social Democrats some time after the elections...
...It is a state monopoly, and the Christian Democratic government, headed by Premier Adone Zoli, had already been criticized for using it in the party interest...
...According to law, only elections for the Chamber of Deputies were due this year, since it has a five-year term...
...Nevertheless, the army of unemployed is still some two million strong, and there are millions of families in the south who live at near-starvation levels...
...Along with this constitutional reasoning there were political considerations...
...Meanwhile, the Christian Democrats have been busy preparing a modern, efficient campaign...
...The country as a whole has doubtless achieved more substantial progress than in any other decade in its history...
...Unfortunately, the prospects for this group of honest and able men are not promising...
...Pietro Nenni's Socialists, linked firmly to the Communists in the postwar decade, will not go along with this Communist line...
...The Communists are making Gronchi's dissolution of the Senate one of their main campaign issues...
...The extreme Right—Monarchists and neo-Fascists—has no discernible program...
...The result is that television here will be non-political at election time...
...Half the Socialists, including the party machine, stand with the Communists...
...The pro-Communists who control the PSI machine have made Nenni adjust his position repeatedly in recent months, and they are determined not to irritate the Communists during the campaign...
...Dissolution seems the only issue on which the Communists and Nenni's PSI will vary significantly in this campaign...
...For anti-clerical voters are already largely pledged to Nenni's Socialists, or to the Communists...
...They have obtained new propaganda weapons in the sputniks and Khrushchev's discontinuance of nuclear tests, and will use them to the utmost...
...There is no doubt that the campaign will be vigorous and that the two leading parties—Christian Democrats and Communists—will benefit from skilful propaganda techniques...
...On the other hand, providing equal time for the dozen different national parties would be a difficult task, indeed...
...The Senate term is six years, and thus it could have continued to sit until next year...
...Social Democrat Paolo Rossi asked the young man at a public meeting: "In which capacity do you seek the vote of the electors—as the son of the man shot in Verona or as the grandson of the man who shot your father...
...Nenni is trying to establish a separate identity from the Communists without paying the price (large-scale defections of pro-Communists from his party...
...Nenni has had considerable trouble inside his party...
...In fact, Gronchi had obtained in advance Nenni's pledge that he would not oppose dissolution of the Senate...
...The PSI pretended that the offer was not serious...
...A fortnight ago, Social Democratic leader Giuseppe Saragat offered Nenni an agreement on a joint Senatorial ticket for the two parties...
...The Republicans and Radicals, who have allied, will stress resistance to clerical encroachment, as represented not only by the Catholic hierarchy but by the Christian Democratic party...
...The divided PSI is in a more difficult position...
...They charge—not without foundation—that the ruling Christian Democratic party (to which the President belongs) had five years in which to submit a constitutional amendment on Senate reform, but failed to do so...
...Overt Christian Democratic use of TV in the campaign would provoke such a general outcry that the Christians Democrats would lose, rather than gain, votes...
...It seems unlikely that many voters will be swayed by this legalistic argument...
...Saragat startled some of his sympathizers by advocating the creation of a neutral zone in Central Europe (comprising a united Germany, Poland and Hungary), but nobody questions Social Democratic loyalty to the Western alliance...
...At the moment, the machine appears to have the upper hand...
...He also boasted of 120,000 campaign workers, among them 40,000 women...
...the ballots) ; and nothing came of the offer...
...But it is clear that dissolution sprang from the conflict between the two houses over a Chamber proposal to shorten the Senate term to five years...
...Election set for May 25 italian parties open campaign By Sigfrido Ciccotti Rome After lengthy debate in the press and political circles, Giovanni Gronchi, President of the Italian Republic, called a national Parliamentary election for May 25...
...The unfair distribution of the national wealth will be the main issue of the Social Democrats...
...For, if Deputies were to be elected this year and Senators next, there would be a year of continuous politicking which would paralyze Parliament...
...Gronchi is trying to wean Nenni away from the Communists...
...In other words, was your father a traitor, or was your grandfather a murderer...
...National income has almost doubled, and one can see the emergence of a modern and progressive Italy in both the cities and the countryside...
Vol. 41 • April 1958 • No. 16
