The Test for Italy's D'Alema
O'GRADY, DESMOND
A PRAGMATIST OF THE LEFT The Test for Italy's D'Alema By Desmond O'grady Rome During THE parliamentary discussion preceding Massimo D'Alema's installation last October 21 as Italy's...
...One of these, whose unwieldy name is Italy of Values, was founded by the former crusading magistrate Antonio Di Pietro and stresses honesty and respect for the law in public life...
...He therefore backed the successful attempt by former Christian Democrat Romano Prodi to challenge Berlusconi in the 1996 election...
...D'Alema probably shed few tears when Prodi was toppled by conflicts with the hard-line Communist Refoundation Party (RC)over the budget...
...In 1975 D'Alema became the national head of the Communist Youth Federation, a job that took him to China and Cuba...
...The situation may be altered, too, by a referendum the constitutional court is expected to approve shortly that would abolish the proportional voting system now applicable to 25 per cent of the ballots...
...His father was a Communist parliamentarian and his mother a staunch PCI member...
...There was even talk of launching an Olive International, with British Prime Minister Tony Blair andU.S...
...Earlier that day the opposition leader and former Prime Minister...
...Five years later he became party Secretary for the Apulia region, in the heel of the Italian boot (his family is of Southern origin), then he edited the party daily L'Unita...
...Then there is the national network of civic groups established by the Olive Tree coalition that could become a party, particularly if the widely respected Prodi, angry at being dumped, takes the initiative...
...Yet whether or not the electorate is ready to entrench an ex-Communist as Prime Minister remains an open question, and one of the few doubts about D'Alema concerns his willingness to take political gambles...
...In their view, the country's best hope lies in an alliance of several new or budding movements...
...Earlier in the year, when bribery scandals disgraced the Christian Democratic-Socialist coalition, it seemed that the PDS, still led by Achille Occhetto, would win the general election...
...D'Alema, however, is less interested in joining the Center and Left, as the Olive Tree coalition did, than in the sort of cooperation that lets them remain distinct...
...Communists had participated in four provisional postwar governments, until Prime Minister Alcide de Gaspari of the dominant Christian Democratic Party (DC) ousted them in 1947...
...Another is the nascent Mayor's Party, proposed by the Mayors of cities such as Rome, Venice and Catania, who are now elected by direct vote rather than by party lists...
...Considerable dexterity will be required as well to defuse an unforeseen international crisis: Turkey's demand that the Kurdish rebel leader, Abdullah Ocalan, who is seeking asylum here, be extradited...
...Under Prodi, D'Alema was president of a bicameral parliamentary commission that tried to reach an agreement on institutional, electoral and judicial reforms...
...He studied Latin and Greek in high school and philosophy at the elite Ecole Normal of the University of Pisa, but did not receive a degree...
...In any case, an election cannot be called before the Presidential contest at the end of May...
...When President Oscar Luigi Scalfaro then invited him to form a government, some recalled his nickname, "Mandrake," bestowed because of his ability to make rivals such as Occhetto and now Prodi disappear...
...But D'Alema's smile as he received it was strained...
...He wanted to be considered a Social Democrat, occupying the territory of the almost defunct Italian Socialist Party...
...D'Alema's government has a maximum of two years to run...
...The author of five books on politics, he often chuckles tolerantly before responding to questions...
...The DC went on to win Italy's initial general election with a campaign that included outlandish attacks and slogans like "Stalin doesn't see you in a polling booth, God does.' D'Alema was born the following year...
...Prodi, meanwhile, was winning adherents to the Olive Tree coalition, a product of electoral necessity that soon developed into a "new way of doing politics" by allowing ex-Communists, Communists, ex-Christian Democrats, and others to collaborate without worrying about party affiliation...
...The baby-eating charge was originally leveled during the intense April 1948 general election...
...In June 1994, D'Alema was elected General Secretary of the Democratic Party of the Left (PDS), as the bulk of the Italian Communists had renamed themselves following the Soviet Union's collapse...
...One of D'Alema's first challenges has been the very one that sank his predecessor...
...Admirers called him an iron fist in an iron glove...
...Thus he identified with the Socialist International, rather than with the nebulous Olive International that would meld Leftists and Cenfrists...
...He is also the first Prime Minister since Giulio Andreotti to root for Roma, the more popular of Rome's two A-Division soccer teams...
...When Prodi subsequently made some gestures toward improving social conditions, though, the RC declared them inadequate and withdrew its crucial support...
...Fearing that the Olive Tree coalition would eclipse the PDS, D'Alema distanced himself from it...
...Television was D'Alema's medium of choice for the makeover...
...As Prime Minister, D'Alema has so far sought to be all things to all men, perhaps because the budget must be approved by year's end and because his coalition extends from unreconstructed Communists to reconstructed ex-Christian Democrats who were elected as part of the Center-Right government but switched sides...
...Some commentators see this as a return to old-style politics...
...His image has been that of the perfect party man: cool and lucid, prudent but implacable...
...At this writing D'Alema has refused both requests, but it is unlikely that he will be able to resolve the situation without alienating either elements of his own coalition or a close ally...
...But it was clear that as leader of the largest party in what was called the Olive Tree coalition, he was a possible Prime Minister, and he began to work on changing his severe image...
...This could spur the parties to agree to additional electoral changes designed to produce strong governments capable of lasting throughout the five-year legislative terms, instead of shaky coalitions...
...On talk shows, including several carried by channels Berlusconi owned, D'Alema presented the human face of an exCommunist...
...He has long complained about print journalists' alleged distortions, and was angry when Right-wing papers reported that he and other prominent Leftists lived in low-rent state housing developments...
...In fact, one of his books, A Normal Country, appeals wistfully for an Italy where Center-Left and Center-Right governments alternate...
...The commission was on the verge of reaching a consensus when negotiations broke down last April, scuppering D'Alema's first bid to become a statesman...
...At the age of eight he made a speech on behalf of Communist scouts at a party congress...
...Nevertheless, he will need all his skills as a political magician to maintain the social welfare system, increase public investments and reduce unemployment—currently at 30 per cent in much of the South—while safeguarding financial stability...
...D'Alema has also promised to soften the effects of Italy's economic policies...
...President Bill Clinton as participants...
...Desmond O'Grady, a past NL contributor, is an Australian correspondent in Rome...
...A PRAGMATIST OF THE LEFT The Test for Italy's D'Alema By Desmond O'grady Rome During THE parliamentary discussion preceding Massimo D'Alema's installation last October 21 as Italy's first ex-Communist Prime Minister, the head of one of his government's coalition partners presented him with a confectionery doll...
...If he achieves significant electoral reform, it might be advisable for him to call an election before—to use a Marxist expression he knows well—internal contradictions cause his coalition to explode...
...Prodi's government had adopted the rigorous monetary policies of the former governor of the Bank of Italy, Carlo Azeglio Ciampi, a step that enabled Italy to meet Maastricht requirements for entering the European Union...
...Since 1987, he has served in the Chamber of Deputies...
...That resulted in his moving to an apartment near the Vatican with his attractive archivist wife, Giuva, and his teenage son and daughter...
...Viewers learned that he is a card player, an enthusiastic cook, owns a Labrador named Lulu, partly owns a 14meter racing yacht, and has a dry sense of humor...
...Silvio Berlusconi, had echoed the same sentiments by unfairly attributing the terrorism of the notorious Red Brigades to the Italian Communist Party (PCI...
...Evidently people feared the eating habits of even former Communists, though, for media mogul Berlusconi was able to throw together his Forza Italia Party in 100 days and emerge the victor...
...Slim and sharp-faced, with a mustache and wavy hair, opponents said he resembled a gigolo or a ladies' hairdresser...
...The steel, however, sometimes glints through, revealing the supercilious manner of someone sure of his superior intelligence...
...Succeeding Occhetto after the PDS' disappointing defeat, D'Alema realized that the parliamentarians and delegates from the regional assemblies who serve as electors of the Prime Minister were not ready to vote an ex-Communist into power...
...This worldliness extends to D'Alema's pride in being a professional politician, and his flexibility has enabled him to retain a relationship with opponents like Berlusconi, who is still fighting the Cold War...
...Unlike Prodi, he has not only the Bank of Italy's backing but also the qualified support of the Industrialists' Confederation and of the trade unions...
...The gift was meant to playfully mock the accusation once made that "Communists eat babies...
Vol. 81 • November 1998 • No. 13
