Ever since Premier Amintore Fanfani teamed up with Pietro Nenni's Socialists almost a year ago to form Italy's apertura a sinistra ("opening to the left"), the uneasy alliance has been clouded by a single issue: Nenni's demand for the creation of 15 regional administrations that he figures will boost his party's grass-roots support. Fanfani agreed to pay Nenni's price because he needed the Socialists' 88 votes in the Chamber of Deputies in order to stay in power, but he stalled on enacting the scheme just the same.
Fanfani feared that the Socialists would sign local electoral agreements with Communists and...