Craxi's Thousand Days
SENIGALLIA, SILVIO F.
STEERING A MIDDLE GROUND Craxi's Thousand Days BY SILVIO F. SENIGALLIA Rome With the celebration of its 1,000th day in power April 28, the Italian Center-Left coalition government headed by...
...He has therefore been devoting the bulk of his energies recently to organizational matters...
...Under the DC's rules, one person cannot hold both posts...
...The Milan Stock Exchange has been superbullish for months...
...It is no secret that the DC, three times stronger than the PSI and Italy's plurality party, is unhappy about Craxi's prolonged stay at Palazzo Chigi, the Renaissance palace where the Italian chief of government has his office...
...The people here have in various ways indicated a desire to avoid getting involved militarily...
...The other source of exceptional friction within the coalition, Middle East policy, is itself an exception...
...Craxi is a determined, highly intelligent, ruthless politician in total control of his party (11 percent of the vote), and he does not appear ready to yield the national reins...
...In short, this hardly seems the moment to press for a change at the top...
...STEERING A MIDDLE GROUND Craxi's Thousand Days BY SILVIO F. SENIGALLIA Rome With the celebration of its 1,000th day in power April 28, the Italian Center-Left coalition government headed by Socialist (PSI) Bettino Craxi achieves a notable distinction...
...Considering that not even the late Christian Democratic (DC) statesman Aldo Moro was able to reach the 900-day mark at the peak of his party's undisputed dominance, the extent of the political stability Italy has enjoyed in the past three years looks truly remarkable...
...Right now he wants very much to avoid a showdown with the Socialists that would entail a government crisis and consequent postponement of the congress...
...He is expected to step down in the spring of 1987, before the Socialist national congress...
...What this means in practical terms was demonstrated after the hijacking of the Achil-le Lauro, with the dubious release of the man thought to have masterminded the cruise ship operation, Mohammed "Abu" Abbas, head of the ultra-militant PLO component called the Palestine Liberation Front...
...How about De Mita himself...
...Deputy Prime Minister Arnaldo Forlani, a personable and sensible middle-of-the-roader who gets along very well with Craxi, reportedly lacks the drive and stamina an Italian prime minister needs to survive...
...Nor is it that De Mita's image is that of apolitico, rather than of a statesman...
...In addition, the balance of payments deficit is dramatically lower than it was in the same period a year ago...
...During the last few months, a weaker and basically isolated Spadolini has remained quietly within the government fold, apparently accepting the middle course Craxi has been steering between President Ronald Reagan and Libyan strongman Muammarel-Qaddafi...
...Beyond the DC's immediate internal conflicts, its desire to oust Craxi is complicated, first of all, by the essential question of who in the party's upper echelons would be a suitable candidate to folSilvio F. Senigallia reports regularly for The New Leader on Italian affairs...
...Spadolini, it will be remembered, then pulled his party out of the coalition, bringing down the government...
...Craxi and Andreotti, on the other hand, tend to take a pro-Arab stand...
...Well, there is good reason to doubt he would really want the slot...
...They differ sharply, however, on what Italy should or should not do to protect its Mediterranean interests...
...Stability, in other words, has not been matched by the ability to govern...
...Spadolini, ironically dubbed chief of the "American Party" by the Left, favors full support of the United States posture, and hence a firmer stand toward Palestinian and Libyan terrorism...
...For where Craxi has no trouble at all running PSI headquarters in absentia, nobody can assure De Mita that while at Palazzo Chigi he would not be stabbed in the back by the "friendly" hand of his successor...
...More recently public opinion has shifted somewhat...
...These days the business pages of Italian newspapers are full of good news...
...No, the problem is a very different one: He would be placing his future in jeopardy by leaving the party stewardship to assume the prime ministership...
...Inflation (8.6 per cent at the end of 1985) has come down about 1.5 per cent in the first trimester of the current year, and the official estimate that it might drop to 5 per cent at the end of 1986 no longer has the ring of pure propaganda...
...But a week later he withdrew his resignation, following a bland explanation by the Prime Minister...
...This widespread reaction on the part of the man in the street is undoubtedly comforting to the Prime Minister...
...Although several former DC prime ministers—including Mariano Rumor, Flaminio Piccoli and Emilio Colombo—would not mind going back to Palazzo Chigi, they are spent forces with no political clout...
...His arch political critic, DC Secretary Ciriaco De Mita, is by contrast the head of a federation of factions whose chieftains frequently pursue policies and aims that do not necessarily coincide with those of their leader...
...Unfortunately, the performance of the government has been only moderately constructive, largely because of the constant bickering among Cabinet members and party leaders that often descends to unseemly personal attacks based on unfounded accusations...
...The dispute, though, is not between the Christian Democrats and the Socialists...
...President Reagan is probably right in his description of Qaddafi as a "mad dog," it is further felt, but nobody has provided the evidence connecting him directly with the newest acts of wanton terrorism...
...If he has not been able to tackle many of Italy's long-standing problems, he has nonetheless again succeeded in neutralizing the latest potential threats to his government pretty much on his own terms—a talent, of course, that explains his Thousand Days...
...low him...
...they fear this could be counterproductive, whatever Libya's responsibility for financing and arming Arab terrorists...
...Time is not working in De Mita's favor, and he would hate to give his already strong intraparty opponents more time to make deals and map a possibly winning strategy that would cost him his job...
...it is between Minister of Defense Giovanni Spadolini, leader of the small but influential Republican (PRI) Party—backed, at least tacitly, by the Liberal Party and the Social Democrats— and the Craxi-Andreotti axis...
...It isn't that his curriculum vitae shows he has thus far merely held comparatively minor government portfolios—as it happens, Craxi held none before being tapped for the prime ministership...
...For him control of the prime minister 's office is a future problem...
...At long last, owing to the decline of the dollar and plummeting oil prices, Italy is in good economic shape...
...The Christian Democrats would like to dislodge the Socialist Prime Minister and replace him with one of their own, but the successful execution of that maneuver involves far more than meets the eye...
...Accordingly, the majority of observers here believe Craxi will remain the Prime Minister for one more year...
...Last October Spadolini's sound, albeit short-lived, stand had the support of many Italians horrified by the pirating of the Achille Lauro and the consequent murder of an elderly American passenger (See "Italy's Mideast Strategy," NL, October 21, 1985...
...Moreover, his controversial pro-Arab stand has rendered him persona non grata to a large sector of public opinion...
...In most areas of foreign policy, such as East-West relations and disarmament, the partners are in basic agreement...
...Indeed, if De Mita is to keep his position, he will have to secure the strong support of the delegates to the DC congress scheduled to take place at the end of May...
...And besides the "normal" wrangling over the assignment of political plums to this Socialist or that Christian Democrat, of late the friction within the coalition has in particular revolved around two issues, namely possession of the prime ministership and Middle East policy...
...Foreign Minister Giulio Andreotti has the required experience, brains and wiles, yet has made too many enemies during his 40years in ruling groups...
...Yet since the tension in the Mediterranean area is, alas, here to stay, the Defense Minister still has an important role to play in pressing for action against terrorism and warning against appeasement of Qaddafi and PLO leader Yasir Arafat...
...A second complication confronting the DC has to do with timing...
Vol. 69 • March 1986 • No. 6
