For weeks all Italy had been watching the campaign for a regional legislature which has no direct bearing on the national government. But Premier Mario Scelba's Christian Democrats had declared the Sicilian elections a test of their anti-Communist program, and the Communists had accepted the challenge.
Last week 2,322,616 Sicilians voted and the verdict was a resounding victory for the Christian Democrats. They increased their share of the total vote from 31.2% in 1951 to 38.6%. They increased their seats in Sicily's parliament from 30 to 37, giving their regional government, which in Sicily acts in coalition with the...