Apathy Italian-style
Peter Nichols
Rome The true result of the Italian general election emerges from the figures in the way an amiable old character in one of Eduardo de Filippo's earlier plays told people the time: he would bring out his pocket watch, hold it towards the sun coming through the door of his darkly cool little shop, shake it, multiply the minutes by one figure and divide the hour-hand's indication by some other figure, adjusting the numbers by still more complicated mental calculations which involved a great deal of concentration as well as facial contortion, adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing until he could triumphantly announce what time the old time-piece really was trying to indicate.
Italians shamefacedly point out that a lower percentage of the electorate went to the polls than at any other general election since the war. Apathy, then! At last the voters were showing that they had finally run out of patience with these politicians who bored them so much during the campaign and had behind them too long a record of seeming indifference to public opinion, an incapacity to deal with the terrorists, the economic problems, even such simple matters as fixing the date of the election they were all agreed on calling. But not quite apathy. Italy's worst case yet of absenteeism at the polls saw an overwhelming 90 per cent cast their vote for the eighth parliament since the war. This is not apathy by anybody else's standards.
A defeat for the Communists at long last? Well, certainly the country's second largest party lost ground for the first time in any general election. Even in 1958, their only national setback, when they lost one seat in the Chamber, their total vote increased. This time there is no doubt that they have given ground: they will have 26 seats less in the new Chamber, dropping from 227 to 201. But the Communist problem remains. They are still the only party which comes near to challenging the Christian Democrats who have led every government for three decades, some with and some without Communist help. But they remain unacceptable as partners in government. The Communists can reasonably maintain that they have kept an inevitable defeat within reasonable bounds, especially if the gains of about seven per cent they made in 1976 at the last general election can be accepted as extraordinary. The margin of Communist losses is still insufficient for the next Christian Democrat administration to be able to operate confidently without some sort of arrangement with the Communists. The situation is a little looser than it was in the last parliament but not enough for there to be real alternatives to an arithmetically weak administration which will have to look for votes outside its own ranks. And, because neither Communists nor neofascists can be taken into government, the parliamentary machine can still only work at less than two thirds of its capacity.
Can one add that the Christian Democrats have confirmed once again their exclusive right to lead governments? They had a lot on their side but managed to do less well than a year since Aldo Moro, their most eminent figure, was kidnapped by terrorists and murdered, providing them with a martyr-figure. The popular triumphs of the Pope — who left for his Polish home-coming on the day before the majority of Italians voted — looked set to help the Catholic party, at least indirectly. During the campaign they were hit hardest by political violence. The Christian Democrat record is nothing to boast about, but the attempt at bringing in the Communists and most of the smaller parties to support them in parliament had not brought striking results and the answer to the obvious need for firmer government could well be seen in giving the long suffering and long suffered Christian Democrats a still bigger lead over other parties so that some sense of direction might hopefully return. Instead, they lost some ground, though not enough to deny them their unquestioned predominance in the business of leading governments. They will have a little more potential support from their traditional allies among the small centre parties. The Liberals, the Social Democrats and the Republicans all held their ground or improved their position a little despite fears of more polarisation towards the two big groups. The Liberals stopped their decline. The Republicans held fast despite the death of their outstanding personality, Ugo la Malfa. The Social Democrats too have improved. None of this nevertheless is substantial enough to change the basic situation. Nor are the small gains made by the Socialists, the third largest party in the country, who will have 62 seats in the new Chamber in place of 57. They remain the party that could, by offering its support to a coalition led by the Christian Democrats, demote the Communists to a clear position of opposition. But so far they have not shown any inclination to work in government without some agreement with the Communists. The one outstanding success, which needs no shaking of the electoral watch to read its significance, is the advance of the Radicals from four seats in the old parliament to 18 in the new one. They are a colourful grotIP which has been the Most effective opponent of collaboration between Christian Democrats and Communists which they see as the threat of a new regime: they have fought the ecological battle, the successful campaign for legalised abortion and even when theY were just four — 'the gang of four' as their exasperated opponents called them — were capable of causing long delays in parliamentary business by ingenious exploitation of the House's rules which are admittedlY favourable to the causes of the minorities.. With such large reinforcements, their activities will be much more influential. They are unlikely to prejudice their freedom of action by agreeing to support a coalition. Though well over on the left, theY have won the particular detestation of the Communists, and their behaviour is not predictable.
This was in no way a decisive election. Arguably, is could be said that the public on the whole showed a dislike for increased collaboration between Communists and Christian Democrats. Even that vague conclusion needs a good deal of subtraction, multiplying, addition and division before It can be made to sound true. Perhaps the most likely lesson of the election is that there will be another one before much longer.
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