Craxi's Limited Victory
SENIGALLIA, SILVIO F.
THE DC-PSI ARMISTICE Craxi's Limited Victory BY SILVIO F. SENIGALLIA Rome A still cocky, albeit somewhat battered, Bettino Craxi is back in the Palazzo Chigi, the residence of Italy's prime...
...After all, both the Christian Democrats and the Socialists agreed that the outgoing coalition was the only viable one, and neither party wanted early elections...
...Seldom, if ever, have two parties allied at the national level campaigned against each other with such hostility and venom...
...or b) he could remain through Parliament's approval of the financial program for 1987, but in nocase beyond December...
...That happened in a secret vote—an Italian anomaly—following an open vote in which the " snipers" had stood up and "loyally" supported the piece of legislation the government introduced...
...The bone of contention between the DC and the PSI is the nation's top political post...
...Ambushes by the snipers had caused difficulties for Craxi as many as 163 times in the last three years, but never until now had he thought—or been made to think—in terms of resignation...
...The big plum, though, was in Socialist hands...
...Obviously the Socialist leader could n Tl accept either condition, and it is hard to know whether De Mita expected that he would...
...So, Craxi has formed a new coalition government...
...This country's 32-day political crisis was resolved on July 29 when the five political parties of the previous coalition finally said yes to participating in a new, very similar government...
...After resistance leader Ferruccio Parri's brief tenure in 1945,36 years went by before the DCs relinquished their hold on the job...
...Actually, the results of the Sicilian elections provided the two rivals with only a measure of satisfaction, since all five coalition parties scored modest gains at the expense of the Communists, Italy's second largest party with thesup-port of just under a third of the national electorate...
...No Socialist prime Silvio F. Senigallia reports regularly for The New Leader on Italian affairs...
...But on June 27 Craxi resigned and the war was resumed until the July 29 armistice...
...3. The knowledge that many of his own people had voted against him precisely because they sought to bring down the government and start a donnybrook with the Christian Democrats...
...The DCs, who once could boast of garnering 41 per cent of the ballots, remained number one but secured only 3 3 per cent of the vote...
...The Socialists supported their leader to the hilt, and when Cossiga asked Foreign Minister Giulio Andreotti, a veteran Christian Democrat, to form a government their fury became unbounded...
...They arc the fate of all coalitions where the veto of one of the partners can bring about inertia or threaten collapse...
...The obstacles that prevented Craxi's stable government from enacting an effective legislation program remain...
...The regional elections held in Sicily in the third week of June were tailor-made for the clash...
...The incumbent emphasized his experience and his government's stability...
...The main factors in his June 27 decision were: 1. The size of the Parliamentary reversal...
...The crisis that ensued would have been much shorter and less disruptive were it not for Craxi's pride and De Mita's vengeful heavy-handedness...
...Moreover, aggressive and egocentric Bettino Craxi was not missing a chance to emphasize his leadership and project his durable statesman's image...
...Craxi's reaction, therefore, was a total rejection of the DC proposals, a defense of his record, and an assertion of his right to stay in office until he personally decided to step down...
...Aware that the Socialists' pride would make them withhold support from any Christian Democrat, himself included, Andreotti soon gave up hope of forming a government...
...The situation changed drastically after the 1983 national elections, however...
...It is as wobbly and quarrelsome as the previous one, but nobody cares at the moment...
...Until a few years ago, a Christian Democratic prime minister was an unchallenged Italian tradition...
...Craxi wanted a Socialist victory coupled with a DC defeat to justify his in-sistenceupon staying in the job...
...Instead, he devoted himself to finding a compromise solution that would allow Craxi to save face and enable the DCs to attain their goal, although with a measure of delay...
...his opponent answered that in a democracy the strongest party must be assigned the prime minister's office...
...The PSI national congress in March 1987 and the 1988 elections made any long-range stringent commitment unthinkable...
...The major difference is that their written agreement includes a clause requiring Craxi to hand over his office to a Christian Democrat in March 1987...
...At the same time, they officially notified the PSI that they would accept Craxi's continuing as prime minister under one of two conditions: a) He could stay on the job up to the next national elections, due in June 1988, if he committed himself and his party to supporting a five-year DC prime ministership afterward...
...As the months and soon the years went by, the Christian Democrats became increasingly restless and frustrated over their extended stay in the wilderness...
...At the end of the summer the situation will be slams quo ante...
...Only after his resounding May 1986 victory at the Christian Democrat national congress did De Mita turn his undivided attention to ousting an extremely reluctant Craxi and replacing him with a DC man...
...DeMita would get the official assurance in a compact drafted by Craxi himself...
...For a few days it looked as if there would be a period of quiet after the tempest...
...You may call it blackmail, but thus on August 4, 1983, began the Center-Left coalition that celebrated its 1,000th day in power last April 28, setting a new longevity mark in postwar Italian history...
...1. Further, his commitment had to be in writing and unequivocal...
...Craxi, despite the fact that his party pulled an undistinguished 11 percent of the total tally, became the determined holder of the balance of power...
...Craxi's cockiness and DC grumbling notwithstanding, De Mita was unwilling to get involved in a major political battle prior to gaining full control of his party machine...
...He took over the reins when the DC, concerned that its plurality was slipping, wanted to put its house in order and decided Spadolini was no real threat to the future resumption of the Christian Democrat stewardship...
...Throughout the month of July a naked, ruthless struggle for power was fought between the Christian Democratic Party (DC), led by Secretary Ciri-aco De Mita, and the Socialist Party (PSI), headed by Craxi...
...It is vacation time in Italy...
...Nevertheless, once Craxi resigned the DCs immediately put pressure on the President of the Republic, Francesco Cossiga, to tap a member of their party to form a government instead of pursuing the tradition of giving the outgoing man first crack at the task...
...To be sure, their party held 16 out of 29 ministries, including foreign affairs, treasury, justice and police...
...Ironically, the Socialists owe the unblocking of the crisis and Craxi's return until March 1987 to Andreotti's savvy and finesse...
...He had resigned on June 27 in the wake of a serious setback suffered in the Chamber of Deputies when at least 70 parliamentarians belonging to the coalition helped defeat a local finance bill...
...minister, no Socialist participation...
...To the tactlessness of the DC leadership in clearly implying that they would not trust his word under any circumstances if it was not in black and white, Craxi responded with a stonewalling strategy...
...2. The strained relations between the PSI and the DC...
...THE DC-PSI ARMISTICE Craxi's Limited Victory BY SILVIO F. SENIGALLIA Rome A still cocky, albeit somewhat battered, Bettino Craxi is back in the Palazzo Chigi, the residence of Italy's prime minister...
...He kept the prime ministership issue topical, yet refrained from any aggressive action aimed at recapturing it...
...DeMita wanted to prove that a healthy and united Christian Democratic Party was ready and entitled to resume directing the country...
...In this spirit it was eventually agreed that Craxi would step down just before the PSI congress next March "as he had already decided he would do,' and that he would support the DC successor until the 1988 elections...
...As for the second solution, he refused to be "evicted" whenever the DCs found it convenient...
...No Socialist participation, no government...
...The non-DC prime minister was Giovanni Spadolini, a distinguished historian who leads the tiny, Center-Left Republican Party...
Vol. 69 • August 1986 • No. 11
