As Italy Goes to the Polls
SENIGALLIA, SILVIO F.
BEDSHEET BALLOTS As Italy Goes to the Polls BY SILVIO F. SENIGALLIA ROME NOT LONG AGO a noted Italian journalist, half in jest, admonished the voters here not to turn the country's next...
...Perhaps that characterization of the Lombard League's adherents is unfair...
...Writing in the Milan daily Il Giornale, Federico Orlando recently struck a sober note of concern...
...It is Italy's proportional electoral system, however, that prompts them to enter the political arena...
...Furthermore, he has been bolstered by rumors that President Francesco Cossiga will tap him after the elections and let the Christian Democrats know that Parliament will be dissolved if they do not accede to the move...
...But even he concedes that the excessive fragmentation of the political spectrum is bound to create confusion, if not utter chaos...
...FOR THE SAKE of Craxi's designs, the analysis had better be right...
...The danger of a Balkanized Parliament impairing the functions of the State is real...
...Instead, nothing was done...
...They maintain that the hard-working people of their highly productive area are being vastly overtaxed for the benefit of the Mafia-ridden, inefficient, unreliable South...
...Since Milan and Lombardy in general are traditional Socialist Party strongholds, the PSI's leaders are following the campaign there with more than passing attention...
...A cross-section of Northern Italian society, they are mostly artisans, merchants and small-scale industrialists cemented together by their bitter resentment of the central government, contemptuously called "Rome" for short...
...The Lombard League is a different kettle of fish, though, because it operates in PSI territory...
...To be sure, the proliferation of multifarious groups largely pursuing private interests is not extraordinary in a period of widespread frustration and dissatisfaction...
...SILVIO F. SENIGALLIA reports regularly for THE NEW LEADER on Italian affairs...
...In addition to the eight standard parties, a flood of leagues, groups, associations, and movements have weighed in with a staggering number of electoral lists: A total of 13,838 candidates are running for 635 seats in the Chamber of Deputies and 315 in the Senate...
...Orlando pointed out that the dispersion of millions of votes will hinder the main parties from forming a government able to perform its mission...
...The electoral law remains intact, and an ever greater number of representatives from odd aggregations are trying to take advantage of it...
...In 1989, for instance, it became the third strongest party in Lombardy, Italy's richest and most populous region...
...In spite of the trauma caused by the dissolution of the Communist Party and the defection of a sizable group of hard-core Leftists, Occhetto's band is expecting to stay above the 15 per cent mark...
...And while Craxi's demands have been blunt, Andreotti always holds his cards close to his chest...
...Cossiga's term ends in early July, and his successor will be elected immediately afterward...
...League members are so deeply prejudiced against the terroni (pejorative for Southerners) that they would welcome a federation of three Italies-North, Center and South...
...Until then, it is war...
...BEDSHEET BALLOTS As Italy Goes to the Polls BY SILVIO F. SENIGALLIA ROME NOT LONG AGO a noted Italian journalist, half in jest, admonished the voters here not to turn the country's next Parliament into a carbon copy of Poland's legislative assembly, where no fewer than 29 parties are represented...
...The Socialist leader's strategy could boomerang...
...The DC-PSI alignment is virtually mandatory in the light of Craxi's virulent opposition to any form of agreement with PDS chief Achille Occhetto...
...But the field of papabili will widen...
...Yet appearances may be deceiving...
...Police Minister Vincenzo Scotti, searching for a silver lining, claims the proliferation of party logos and candidates shows the vitality of Italian society...
...To an outsider that posture might indeed seem curious, since there is no longer an ideological reason for the Socialists to shun the ex-Communists...
...In such an arrangement, it is said, Lom-bardy and other self-supporting regions would be freed from the burdensome tax load they are supposedly forced to bear...
...His objective is to form a Socialist Unity Party, with the PDS on board as a junior partner...
...In any case, unless there is some surprising outcome in the April vote, the old government alliance between the Christian Democrats and Socialists will be renewed, despite their ceaseless bickering...
...Once the Communist danger disappeared, he argued, the Italian political system should have been reformed to bring it closer into line with the Western model...
...Nevertheless, forthemoment his self-confidence is brimming...
...The Leaguers are neither quaint nor harmless...
...The PDS' showing in the upcoming balloting therefore bears watching...
...Some of their grievances are undoubtedly justified...
...Bettino Craxi, the ambitious and aggressive Secretary of Italy's Socialist Party, doesn't give a tinker's damn about pornostars, disgruntled motorists or harassed housewives...
...thus nobody knows for sure what his goal is, except that the 73-year-old leader has no intention of fading from view...
...The temptation to be jocular about this hodgepodge of parties and contestants is almost irresistible, yet it is no laughing matter...
...In the right circumstances the Christian Democrats might enter into a pact with Occhetto, even if only on an issue-by-issue basis...
...He has made no bones about wanting to replace Giulio Andreotti as Prime Minister, and a loss in his hometown of Milan could dampen his prospects...
...A renewed edition of the "historical compromise" of the late '70s would release the DC from the Socialists' stranglehold and weaken their bargaining power overall...
...Running side by side with the Christian Democrats (DC), the Socialists (PSI), and the ex-Communist Democratic Party of the Left (PDS) will be the Pensioners' Party, Motorists' Defense, the Party of Love (headed by notorious pornostar Ilona Staller, better known as Cicciolina), the Housewives' League (which in Rome lists only 5 women out of 41 candidates), plus a host of more quaint groupings...
...Many of them are simply industrious citizens who, feeling exploited and unappreciated, have been goaded into action by seeing citizens they deem less deserving reap favors from politicians interested solely in votes...
...At present, the favorite for President is Andreotti, with Craxi filling the office of Prime Minister...
...Italians, of course, need no reminder that in 1987 Cicciolina got herself elected to the Chamber of Deputies, and that two years later the Pensioners sent a representative to Milan's Municipal Council...
...That the DC-the plurality party with 33 per cent of the vote in the last general election, compared with the PSI's 14 per cent-is not enchanted by the idea of yielding the post has not fazed him...
...If they succeed, and the Socialists themselves cannot muster a more impressive vote count, Craxi could spend April 7 revising his plans...
...Rome's 28 slates, Milan's 25, Turin's 21, and Florence's 20 are going to make the ballots the size of bedsheets...
...But Craxi's motivation is crudely political...
...for all practical purposes they are Western European Social Democrats...
...Possibly whistling in the dark, they say that the League's gain will be less dramatic than in 1989, and that given the stark ideological differences between the two formations, it will not come at the expense of the PSI...
...Anyone who doubts the seriousness of the situation need merely recall that the outgoing government, a four-party coalition theoretically in control of 56 per cent of the votes in Parliament, was unable to enact the major planks of its program because of endless internal squabbling...
...But what frightens innumerable Italians regardless of political geography is the narrow-mindedness and ignorance of the League's cadre, as well as its apparent determination to undermine national unity in order to advance strictly regional interests...
...Now that national elections are less than a month away (April 5-6), it is quite clear that the warning will not be heeded...
...Consequently, within three months Italy is scheduled to have a new Parliament, a new Prime Minister and a new President...
...It would seem, then, that barring a poor showing at the polls, Craxi will attain the position he covets...
...That state of affairs is bound to make for some tricky negotiations and faulty predictions...
...Since the League sent its rabble-rousing leader Umberto Bossi to the Senate five years ago, it has made huge strides...
...After the ballots are counted, he asked, how many parties will be needed to assemble a coalition with a minimal majority...
Vol. 75 • March 1992 • No. 3
