Italy: Risking Death By Ridicule

The Cabinet of Prime Minister Amintore Fanfani was only ten days old when it fell last week. That made it one of the shortest lived of Italy’s 46 postwar governments. The collapse left President Francesco Cossiga no choice but to dissolve Parliament, setting the stage for elections in June, a year ahead of schedule. Said the weekly L’Espresso: “We are on the eve of a real war of everybody against everybody.”

Cossiga’s move ended a rancorous eight-week search for a successor to the five-party coalition that Bettino Craxi headed for 3 1/2 years. Craxi’s government fell apart in March, after months of infighting between his Socialists and the Christian Democrats over which party should hold the premiership. The polemics and the politics surrounding the collapse were so bizarre, said a Milan daily, that “this republic risks dying of ridicule.”