Correspondents' Correspondence Winning in Italy
SENIGALLIA, SILVIO F.
Soirespondents' orresponaence SrW^KEOUTS OF MORE THAN PERSONAL INTEREST FROM LETTERS AND OTHER COMMUNICATIONS RECEIVED BY THE EDITORS. Winning in Italy Rome?The Election Nobody Wanted" (NL, April...
...and (c) DC unwillingness to pay an exorbitant price?such as the prime ministership—for the arrangement...
...Thanks to a spectacular, headline-grabbing campaign, the number of PR seats in the Chamber of Deputies has jumped from four to 18, despite sharp attacks from both Christian Democrats and Communists...
...The PCI, for its part, has ruled out supporting a DC government without direct participation...
...The DC merely gloated about the Communist defeat and emphasized the unexpected, although far from sensational, progress of its traditional allies (the center-Left Republicans and Social Democrats, and the center-Right Liberals...
...Whistling in the dark, and somewhat out of tune, L 'Unitd declared that the most significant feature of the election was the DCs failure to score predicted gains and "reestablish its hegemony...
...Dedication and unorthodox methods had also served the Radicals well in the past years' successful campaigns to legalize divorce, liberalize the abortion law, and introduce conscientious objection to military service...
...That MSI attracted only 5.3 per cent of the total vote stands as proof of the weakness of Italy's Right-wing extremists, and of how fragmented political parties are favored by the proportional representation system...
...The die-hard neo-Fascists (MSI) weathered a recent split by suffering only modest losses and thus remained the strongest of the eight minority parties competing in the election...
...He does not seem to be willing to explain, however, how the very minor shifts each had substantially alters the situation...
...The one formation genuinely entitled to brag is the pacifist, ecology-minded Radical Party (PR), led by the flamboyant, charismatic Marco Pannella...
...As this is being written, therefore, political analyst here see little chance of the conflicting parties reaching an agreement by June 20, when the new Parliament is scheduled to meet...
...Thus once again it is up to the Socialists to decide whether they will participate in a government excluding and opposed by the Communists, or hold out for a grouping the DC has unanimously vetoed...
...Party Secretary Enrico Berlinguer has declared that the role of member of the parliamentary majority but not of the Cabinet, played by the PCI until early this year, is now unthinkable...
...The election, however, did little to resolve the crucial problem of forming a government...
...But it faces the following obstacles: (a) PSI Secretary Craxi's bitter antagonism toward Prime Minister Giulio Andreotti...
...For example, the Italian Communist Party's (PCI) vote total in the June 3-4 balloting dropped 4 per cent below its 1976 showing, to 30.4 per cent...
...It is too soon to predict how the increase in power and responsibility w ill affect the behavior of "buffoon" Pannella and his "dirty bunch," as they were labeled by PCI and DC respectively...
...Middle-of-the-road Christian Democrats, who had been expected to benefit from the increasingly felt need for stong law and order policies to fight terrorism, were stalemated and even ended up .5 of a point behind '76, with 38.3 per cent of the final tally...
...He is stressing his party's pivotal role, strong bargaining power and determination to get a big price for the support of its 62 deputies...
...The Christian Democrats still lack the votes needed to create a coalition with the moderate minor parties, and they reject the notion of including the Communists...
...Yet on June 5 the party daily, L'Unita, jubilantly announced in a red-letter banner that the PCI's great strength had carried it beyond the 30 per cent mark...
...The Radical Party is the only new thing in Italian politics, and it apparently struck a responsive chord among independents on the Left, for in going from 1 per cent of the vote in '76 to 3.4 per cent now it picked up about half of the ballots lost by the PCI...
...The paper's editorial did admit that there had been a flessione, but its general tone was such that a casual reader would hardly guess that the party had lost over 1 million votes and fallen 8 percentage points behind the majority Christian Democrats (DC...
...He is also saying, or better shouting, that now the Christian Democrats no longer have the upper hand, because the PSI holds the balance of power...
...Of course, MSI's Giorgio Almirante hailed the results, too, and extolled his party's vitality...
...Much more likely, they say, recalling the situations after the 1963 and 1968 elections, is a "seashore government"—a transition government for the summer months—Silvio F. Senigallia...
...But no disappointment over the lost opportunity was voiced...
...Immediately the party's new leader, Pietro Longo, proceeded to build this up beyond all reason...
...Communist losses have de facto eliminated the prospect of Leftist minority rule with the DC in the opposition...
...The small center parties fared well in the sense that they not only survived but received more votes than in 1976...
...This is why the electorate, tired of old faces and stale slogans, rewarded them...
...Against every expectation, the Social Democrats—whose former secretary, Mario Tanassi, is in prison as a result of the Lockheed payola scandal—added 1 point to reach 3.8 per cent...
...As the Milan daily Corriere della Sera noted on June 7, an alliance bringing together the Christian Democrats, Socialists and minor lay parties would for the moment be the best solution to Italy's dilemma...
...They must be given credit, though, for an adventurous, original approach that has brought a touch of drama to Italy's drab political life...
...Winning in Italy Rome?The Election Nobody Wanted" (NL, April 23) has turned out to be the election nobody lost...
...The Socialist Party (PSI), at 10 per cent, scored a rather mangy .2 of a point gain, but that hasn't stopped Secretary Bettino Craxi from striking a triumphant pose either...
...In fact, what the Christian Democrats would really like is a return to the 1978 formula giving the Communists the intermediate role they refuse to resume...
...While it is true that no government opposed by the Communists could be viable without Socialist support, this was equally the case some three months ago when Craxi refused to support a government with a nonDC prime minister, namely the late Republican leader Ugo La Malfa, thereby forcing the dissolution of Parliament...
...b) PSI's fear that it would be vulnerable to Communist attacks...
Vol. 62 • June 1979 • No. 13
