Out for the Big Win

As the Italian election campaign drew to a close this week, all eyes were on the little man with the big ambition. The little man: Amintore Fanfani, secretary-general and campaign manager of the Christian Democratic Party that has governed Italy since the war. The little man's big ambition: at 50, to become Premier of Italy. In pursuit of his dream, Fanfani popped up last week on the cobblestones of Palermo, in the sunny piazzas of a dozen southern farm towns, in the shadows of Milan's cathedral, in the monarchist stronghold of Naples. Since campaign's start he had delivered 140 speeches, talked in melodious tones, with arms aflail, for more than 200 hours to crowds ranging from a few hundred to more than 50,000.

Behind him functioned the best political organization in Italy, much of it his own making. Inheriting the mantle of party leadership just before the death of Italy's great postwar statesman. Alcide de Gasperi, in 1954. Fanfani reorganized and rejuvenated the party from the ward level up. For this year's campaign -the first the party has had to fight without the magic name of De Gasperi -Fanfani organized 120,000 Christian Democratic militants into cells of three people each (one woman, one young man, one cell chief). Student organizations, trade-union groups, para-religious organizations of the Roman Catholic faithful knocked on doors, organized dances, showed documentary films depicting De Gasperi's life, the Hungarian revolt, and the economic progress made under Christian Democratic rule.

Confidence. But while everyone in Italy knew of Amintore Fanfani's ambition, Fanfani himself never once mentioned it. He appealed to crowds to "Vote for the Christian Democrats." never asked them to "Vote for Fanfani." Despite his organizing talent, the quick mind of a man who was formerly a professor of economics at Milan's Catholic University, and his years of ministerial experience in postwar governments, Fanfani has more enemies than friends among his own party's leadership.

His unquestioned devoutness is a target in a campaign marked by anticlerical attacks. His New-Dealish social program makes him unpalatable to conservative Christian Democrats. His all-out organizing methods antagonize the other democratic middle-road parties, whose support has been essential to Christian Democratic rule since 1953 (he lasted only twelve days in his one fling at the premiership four years ago). A recent poll showed that not Fanfani, the party leader, but former Premier and now Foreign Minister Giuseppe Pella is the most popular Christian Democrat in Italy.

Control. In an Italy prosperous and generally content, the Christian Democrats were expected to lead next week's election returns, but not even Fanfani foresees a majority that would allow his party to rule alone. Under new election laws, the Christian Democrats must win almost a million more votes than in 1953 just to hold the 261 seats they now have in the Chamber of Deputies. They are in the awkward position of asking Italians to vote for a party that does not yet know whom it will nominate for Premier. Adone Zoli, the present caretaker Premier, has indicated that he will not take the job again. Fanfani would not want it if he had to form a coalition with more than one other center party: some more moderate Christian Democrat would probably become Premier. To gain his own big ambition, Fanfani has to count on a big win.

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