One More Time

Slouching toward an election

With waving banners and honking horns, the cavalcade wound joyously through the historic center of Rome, past the Forum, around the Colosseum and into the Via Veneto. Along the route, scores of posters exhorted voters in national elections scheduled for June 26 and 27. A political rally? An outpouring of popular support for Premier Amintore Fanfani? Not exactly. The enthusiastic Romans were celebrating the return last week of Lazio, the area soccer team, to the first division. The elections drew yawns from the Lazio fans and from most of their countrymen as well.

Since World War II, Italy has had just eight national elections but 43 different governments, so many that they are now referred to in shorthand, with the name of the Prime Minister and Roman numerals: De Gasperi VIII, Moro III and, most recently, Fanfani V. Italy has a system in which the exercise of normal executive power regularly unravels coalitions, but in which each new government is a virtual clone of the last. "Most campaigns have issues," says Paolo Garimberti of the Turin-based daily La Stampa. "Here we have no issues at all. It's not a question of changing the government. It's not a question of changing the Prime Minister, because it's quite likely that the Christian Democrats will have the Prime Minister again."

In most other European countries, the NATO decision to station cruise missiles on the country's soil would be hotly debated by voters. The miserable state of the national economy would topple governments elsewhere. (Public debt amounts to about $4,000 for every Italian citizen; inflation is running in excess of 16% annually.) Issues exist, but they are not presented as matters to be commented on by the electorate.

The elections are expected to shift voting patterns only slightly. The Christian Democrats have acquired a prestigious first-time candidate in Guido Carli, 69, who headed the powerful Bank of Italy for 16 years. His party will most likely command close to its traditional 38% of the vote. The Communists, under Enrico Berlinguer, have steadily been losing ground since reaching their high of 34.4% of the vote in 1976. Some polls predict 27% or 28% in next week's count. Socialist Leader Bettino Craxi, who forced the elections by bailing out of the last coalition government, had hoped to engineer major Socialist gains (perhaps 15% of the vote, compared with 9.8% in 1979), but the tactic backfired. Party strategists now say they will be relieved to get 12%.

In an apparent effort to win back lost favor, Craxi last week proposed that the Socialists and Christian Democrats agree on "a three-year government" to bring some stability to the political process. Other parties, he added, would be welcome to join. His opponents immediately wondered aloud why stability was suddenly so important to the Socialist leader, but others supported the idea. A three-year pact, wrote the right-of-center Il Giornale, "would permit an exit from the vagueness of electoral rhetoric, to confront the programs and delineate the things to be done." A three-year government would also set a postwar record. This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.