Split Decision

The moderate Christian Democrats, who have governed Italy since World War II, emerged again last week, in Italy's first national election in five years, as the country's strongest political force. But despite general prosperity, their twelve-year grip on office and their excellent, tight-knit political organization, the party failed once again to win a majority. A curious sort of apathy, which could hardly be dismissed as electoral indifference when 94% of those eligible voted (compared to the 50% average turnout at major U.S. elections), hung over the campaign. Perhaps the reason showed in Party Boss Amintore Fanfani's tepid victory cry: "We can continue to guarantee progress without adventures."

The Christian Democrats, in a nation 99% Catholic, were dogged by Italy's old anticlericalism, and by lack of a forceful, unifying leader such as Germany's Christian Democrats have in Konrad Adenauer. Two years after Hungary, the Communists and fellow-traveling Nenni Socialists continued to poll 36.7% of the vote, a slight increase over last time. Results in the Chamber of Deputies:

Seats % of Vote

Christian Democrats 273 ( + 10) 42.4

Communists 140 (-3) 22.7

Nenni Socialists 84 ( + 9 ) 14

Neo-Fascists 24 (-5 ) Under 5%

Social Democrats 23(+ 4) "

Monarchists 23 ( -17) "

Liberals 16 (+3 ) "

It was in poverty-stricken southern Italy, where the government has been lavishing billions of lire on public works, that the Christian Democrats picked up almost all of their 1,500,000 new votes. There they scored heavily off the Monarchists and Neo-Fascists, who between them lost 22 of their 69 Chamber seats in the biggest slideaway of the election. Naples' swashbuckling, 70-year-old millionaire Monarchist Achille Lauro, onetime mayor of the city, was not even elected to his old Senate seat, and appeared finished as a serious political force in Italy.

In the new Parliament, the Christian Democrats lack 26 votes for a majority. Either they will have to shuffle along with their present one-party minority government, gathering day-to-day majorities where they may, or they will have to scout up allies from at least two parties. Possible combinations: join with the free-enterprising Liberals and the Monarchists to form a government leaning to the right, or try to enlist in a center coalition both Giovanni Malagodi's Liberals and Giuseppe Saragat's Social Democrats, whose leaders dislike each other. First the Christian Democrats must choose one of their own to be Premier.

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