Italy Gets a New Government
SENIGALLIA, SILVIO F.
THE GORIA GAMBLE Italy Gets a New Government By Silvo F. Senigallia Rome "CHRISTIAN Democrats and Socialists will keep fighting like cats and dogs, even kick each other's shins under the...
...De Mita, as steward of the largest party, coveted the top job for himself...
...Craxi, by contrast, stressed agreement on a program over the resolution of political differences...
...Despite the plain implications of the returns, both Craxi and de Mita were initially loath to accept the new—actually, the old—reality: that their parties must cooperate without rancor in giving Italy the government it sorely needs, even as they strive for future hegemony...
...A particularly pressing matter for the new Cabinet will be fixing a date for a national referendum on nuclear energy...
...Intramural personality clashes aside, many top DC members worry about de Mita's bellicose attitude toward the Socialists...
...this time, a headline in the party organ Unita made the rift between the PCI's wings explicit: "Occhetto Deputy Secretary—194 Yes, 41 No, 22 Abstentions...
...Yet they would not have minded de Mita's being chosen, for that would have meant his abdication of the party secretaryship (under DC rules the same person cannot hold both positions...
...The Fiatowned Turin Daily Stampa concluded that "the Communist Party has changed...
...Dissatisfaction with its labor policies is only one of the reasons adduced by the analysts, who point to a severe identity crisis...
...This tension in the DCs top echelons, it should be noted, has rather ironically resulted in restlessness and dissension seeping through the Christian Democratic nomenklatura following the Party's electoral success and recapture of the prime ministership...
...The new Cabinet will again be based on a prickly alliance between the Christian Democrats (DC) and Socialists (PSI), with three minor Center-Left parties—the Republicans, Liberals and Social Democrats—in supporting roles...
...The Prime Minister apparently has little to fear from the Socialists in the short term, because they are about to overhaul their entire party structure...
...It took Goria a little over two weeks of gritty bargaining to piece together a cabinet that could agree on a policy program, albeit a limited one...
...While the creation of a government to replace the country's five-month caretaker regime has brought a sigh of relief from the public at large, de Mita has reacted warily and Craxi with nonchalance...
...Silvio F Senigallia regularly reports for The New Leader from Italy...
...Although the PCI is still the second largest party in Italy, its 26.6 per cent share of the vote represented a 3.3 per cent drop since 1983...
...Before the balloting, the PCI's campaign was praised for cleverly aiming its appeals at women, youth and intellectuals...
...Cossiga's choice was canny, because Goria carried a double asset: he was sufficiently close to de Mita to be spared any personal resentment, and he was reportedly persona grata to Craxi, whose Treasury Minister he had been for almost four years...
...His rival, DC National Secretary Ciriaco de Mita, was looking for a substantial gain to reverse a long string of electoral setbacks that had whittled down the plurality party's share from a commanding 48 per cent in 1948 to 32.9 per cent in 1983...
...Thus one of these days de Mita's unhappiness could become explosive...
...There is no doubt that the referendum has to be held, but its wording is a bone of contention...
...A number of urgent measures that got bottled up in Parliament during the election campaign must be tackled as well...
...The Christian Democrats, who favor the use of nuclear power for industrial purposes, would prefer to leave such decisions to the government...
...The mood was very different in June when de Mita jubilantly hailed the heavy losses of the Communist Party (PCI) as the single most important outcome of the election...
...Some of them have predicted that the election marked the beginning of the end for the PCI as the leader of the Italian Left...
...The Socialist leader's conditional green light to the Prime Minister-designate was in large part due to his satisfaction at President Cossiga's rejection of de Mita's candidacy...
...Virtually winking over his acceptance of Cossiga's choice, Craxi is reported to have said, "Goria is my masterpiece...
...Socialist leader Bettino Craxi had hoped to boost the PSI from its 11.4 per cent share of the vote in 1983 to 18 or 19 per cent, in order to retake the prime ministership...
...To be sure, the Socialists' gains were, in size and uniformity, more impressive than the Christian Democrats...
...Even with the erosion in its popularity, though, the PCI's electoral strength still surpasses that of the Socialists combined with the minor Leftist parties represented in Parliament...
...Also disappointing to the PSI was the poor showing of the minor parties, which Craxi always counts on rallying around his flag...
...The challenge facing the Christian Democrats and Socialists, therefore, is to give Italy the kind of government that will not lead to a resurgence of support for the Communists...
...Oddly, Goria's efforts to assemble a cabinet were more warmly supported by Craxi than by de Mita...
...But the strategy boomeranged: The party suffered heavy losses in traditional Northern strongholds, such as Milan and Turin...
...All parties concur that the alliance is based on a narrowly defined program rather than any kind of broad political consensus...
...Months ago the Left-wing parties, including the Socialists, succeeded in gathering the signatures required for a popular vote on the elimination or curtailment of atomic plants...
...Of the other leading DCs, Giulio Andreotti and party President Arnaldo Forlani did not like being bypassed for the prime ministership...
...He also wished to see a "strategic alliance" forged prior to the organization of a new cabinet...
...What happened was that both the Christian Democrats and the Socialists improved their standings enough to express loud satisfaction and strike uncompromising poses, but not enough to be able to deal from a position of strength...
...THE GORIA GAMBLE Italy Gets a New Government By Silvo F. Senigallia Rome "CHRISTIAN Democrats and Socialists will keep fighting like cats and dogs, even kick each other's shins under the table, but they will eventually end up participating in the same coalition government...
...So predicted Giovanni Agnelli, head of Fiat, shortly after Italy's June 14 national election...
...The energy issue in Italy is so charged that Goria was forced to exclude it from the negotiations when forming his Cabinet...
...In absolute terms, however, the PSI's 14 per cent share was still very far from the DCs 34.4 per cent...
...Now, with the 47th post-War government in place under Prime Minister Giovanni Giuseppe Goria, it seems that the country's leading industrialist hit the nail on the head...
...It took much skill and patience on the part of President Francesco Cossiga to break the impasse and get the negotiations going...
...In fact, de Mita's reluctance to head the government in previous years was in some measure due to his apprehensions about being undermined by his successor as DC leader...
...Basic shifts are taking place in the party hierarchy...
...Upon being selected, he signaled his seriousness by immediately announcing that Cossiga would tolerate neither a stopgap government nor a "cabinet of experts...
...Normally cautious, he acted with a boldness that surprised observers here in tapping for the country's top political slot Giovanni Goria, a Christian Democrat whose name had never been so much as mentioned by his party's leadership (de Mita was the sole DC candidate...
...His own camp, on the other hand, could be a source of trouble...
...This legislation, setting Italy's budgetary guidelines for the next fiscal year, is to be taken up by Parliament as soon as its summer recess is over...
...Neither Andreotti nor Forlani favors appeasing Craxi at all costs, but they are convinced that a head-on collision with the PSI cannot be risked...
...A mutually convenient modus vivendi between the two parties must be sought, they keep telling de Mita...
...Previously internal divisions, when acknowledged, were papered over by practically unanimous votes...
...The DCs may be promising full, loyal support to the amico Goria, but de Mita and other party bigwigs were not too pleased about being disarmed by Cossiga's shrewd move...
...The coalition will have the same five-party make-up as before, yet the previous label of pentapartito will not be applied: Craxi has said that the old formula died on June 14, and de Mita added that the new configuration is not strong enough to resuscitate it...
...The Goria government will give first priority to drawing up a " financial law...
...The Communist leadership has discussed the defeat with the sort of openness that Mikhail S. Gorbachev has been verbally pushing in the Soviet Union...
...A young (44), soft-spoken, unemotional Northerner, the Prime Minister is aware that he may be tripped up at any time, yet he has so far moved with poise and assurance...
...Secretary Alessandro Natta's heir-apparent, Achille Occhetto, was elected Deputy Secretary over the firm opposition of the PCI's vocal oldline minority, which had hoped to gain greater influence after the electoral setback...
Vol. 70 • July 1987 • No. 10
