No Change in Rome

...THE RUMOR RETURN No Change Iconic by silvi?F senigalua MARIANO RUMOR Rome On April 7, more than three and a half months after the unofficial beginning of a complex pohtical crisis, and two months to the day after the resignation of the previous Cabinet, Italy's new government went before Parliament for a vote of confidence It was not demed since the so-called Center-Left coalition parties (Christian Democratic, Socialist, Social Democratic, and Republican) control an adequate majority in both chambers, but it would be wrong to assume much has changed The new Prime Minister is the same Mariano Rumor who started the crisis when he resigned as head of an all-Christian Democratic (dc) minority government, apparently unable to cope with social and labor unrest and sporadic violence Last February, his first attempt to form a new coalition among the former political allies failed because of their deep differences on such issues as divorce, the presence of Commumsts m local and regional governments and, of course, the allocation of Cabinet posts That failure, coming in the wake of Rumor's resignation following a rather vacillating performance, was seen as the end of his political career Former Minister of Labor Carlo Donat Cattm, a dc Left-winger who considers Rumor a hopeless reactionary, gloated over the Prime Minister's defeat and humiliation, declaring that he had been properly "kicked out on his arse " But this did not prevent Cat-tin from demanding, and getting, his Labor portfolio back now, under the premiership of the very man he had so rudely slighted The earnest and diligent Rumor is not a master politician who snatched victory from the jaws of defeat with a brilliant last-minute demarche And yet, between his first unsuccessful and his second successful attempt to form a cabinet, the two outstanding leaders of the majority dc party, President of the Senate Amintore Fanfani and Foreign Minister Aldo Moro, had been unable to resolve the longest government impasse since 1963 Like all other crises of this kind in...

...the past 10-odd years, the one just ended stemmed from the basic instability of the Catholic-Socialist coalition that goes under the name of centro sinistra Although it is true that this Center-Left alliance is the only numerically viable government formula in Italy, when it comes to the enactment of a program the sharp differences separating the two major partners are invariably brought into focus The Christian Democratic party —a huge, composite formation whose eight or nine factions are held together mostly by common rehgSilvio F Senigallia, a jrequent contributor, is Rome representative of Farrar, Straus and Giroux ious bonds—is a pragmatic, slow-moving, predominantly conservative group without a real political doctrine The Socialist Party (psi), on the other hand, is impractical and ideologically outdated, still believing m populist slogans and a 19th-century Marxism, and unable to shed either a permanent inferiority complex in regard to the Communists (pci) or a guilt complex when m power Convinced that participating with the Christian Democrats in the government makes them vulnerable on on their Left flank and costs them votes, the Socialists are in constant need of justification But they repeatedly devise the same one?namely, the enactment of overdue, far-reaching social and economic reforms And each time, after a few weeks or months, the realization sinks in that once again the program so laboriously negotiated will not be enacted In 1968, moreover, the Socialists suffered a mild electoral setback that was transformed into a catastrophe by sheer political masochism This has strengthened the belief of large sectors of the psi membership that government alliance with the dc is a kiss of death The Socialist attitude is further compounded by two important factors The first is the behavior of the Christian Democratic Left—the "white Communists, as they have been tabbed by the conservative press By advocating both extensive reforms and a dialogue with the Communists, the cd Left-wingers inevitably push the psi toward more intransigent positions, for fear that they might be outflanked by the Catholic radicals The situation is complicated by the fact that the Socialists have no labor organization of their own and are junior partners m the Communist-dominated General Labor Confederation (cgil), while the Christian Democratic Syndicated National Labor Confederation (cisl) is controlled by the party's Left The second factor is the Socialists' Right flank and relations with the Social Democrats After a shortlived merger (1966-69), the Social Democrats are once again an independent party with a reformist, anti-Communist domestic program and a pro-U S, pro-West, pro-nato foreign policy Thus squeezed between the dc Left and the Social Democrats, alternately praised and denounced by the Communists and the Left-wing Proletarian Socialists, and hamstrung by its old-fashioned doctrinaire outlook, the psi has very little elbow room Following a long and painful reappraisal, the Socialists accepted a government role only because they feared being "blackmailed" by early elections The Social Democrats, who had pressed as hard as possible for the dissolution of Parliament as the sole solution to the long crisis, gave their support to the new coalition only when it became clear that President Giuseppe Saragat would not acceed to their demand without the specific request of the majority party While the Socialists wanted the all-cd minority Cabinet to stay in power and the Social Democrats wanted early elections, the Christian Democrats' aim continued to be a new Center-Left coalition that would get them off the hook Widespread labor agitation and social unrest had severely troubled the country in the "hot fall" of 1969, and the Christian Democrats were embarrassed by the weakness of their neither repressive nor permissive but merely indecisive minority government The cd party, however, is itself deeply torn by bitter ideological and personal quarrels among its numerous factions m general, and by the merciless rivalry between Fan-fam and Moro in particular Rumor eventually succeeded where Fan-fani and Moro failed simply because the Foreign Minister's efforts were sabotaged by the Fanfaniani, and the President of the Senate's premiership was strongly opposed by several high-placed Christian Democrats Interestingly, Rumor not only adopted the very government program proposed by Fanfani, but the compromise solution on divorce accepted by the new coalition was first outlined by Moro and subsequently vetoed by the cd executive The two major questions that held up the negotiations conducted by Rumor, Moro and Fanfani for at least a month and a half were divorce, which the Christian Democrats oppose, and collaboration at local levels between the coalition members—primarily the Socialists —and the Communists The divorce bill—passed by the Chamber of Deputies and about to go to the Senate—has brought about heavy Vatican intervention, including an address by Pope Paul himself stating that unilateral action by the government on the issue would represent a breach of the Lateran Treaty between Italy and the Holy See To overcome the protests of the Socialists, who had sponsored the bill, and at the same time not offend the Church, the coalition parties have stipulated that while the government is bound to uphold the undisputed sovereignty of Parliament, it is free to set out its case to the Pope and take note of his objections In regard to collaboration with the pci, the coalition's platform recommends the formation of Center-Left regional or local administrations wherever the four government partners hold majorities The psi is authorized to form alliances with Communists and Proletarian Socialists when no other majority is possible, and is allowed to decide by itself whether to take such action in areas where the Communists hold most of the votes Any prediction as to the tenure of the new Rumor government is risky, of course But a strictly logical assessment would point to a short life span...