Building sandcastles
Peter Nichols
Rome The politicians have gone off on their holidays leaving behind them a new government, rather as overwrought children unwillingly leave the sandcastle they have spent building, all of a bad-tempered day, on the dirty beach when the time comes to go fretfully home.
The Prime Minister, Francesco Cossiga, is new to the office and, as he put it himself before parliament: 'May God help me!' He deserves some help. He is an unusual Christian Democrat, a sensitive and genuinely cultivated Sardinian who provides this country with its only example, since Christian Democrats took power three decades ago, of the resignation of a minister on the grounds that he had failed in his task. Cossiga was Minister of the Interior from February 1976 until the day after the body of Aldo Moro was found in April 1978, in the luggage boot of a car with his heart encircled by terrorists' bullets. Moro and Cossiga were close friends, and the failure of the police to liberate the former prime minister during the month and a half of captivity was indeed, at least technically, Cossiga's responsibility. But it is not a part of the logic of Italian politics to equate failure with the need to resign from office. Cossiga, moreover, could have claimed extenuating circumstances. The intelligence services were at that time practically nonexistent. Their effectiveness had been destroyed as a result of the far right-wing plotting within the service. In fact only now do they seem to be functioning in a useful way.
But not even the Secret Service would have been able to advise Cossiga to stay by the telephone to prepare for his return to active politics. Three candidates had failed to form a government before his success this week. President Pertini's decision to call him back from obscurity was a total surprise. Cossiga's own party was publicly tear ing itself to pieces as a prelude to its national congress, due in the autumn, when it will be ritually put back together again. The Social ists were smarting under the humiliation of having, for the first time, tried but failed to lead a government because the Christian Democrat leadership stopped them. The Communists have remained moodily in the wings since their setback in the June general election. Enrico Berlinguer, the Communist leader, says that he is no longer available to support a government which does not have Communists actually in the Cabinet. This attitude began to take shape more than half a year ago when the Communists had brought down Italy's last fully functioning government. It hardened as a result of 'Communist losses in the June general election. As a result, Italy came near in the last few weeks of bargaining to seeing the formation of its first administration for 'five years without an arrangement with the Communists. The seven-month period was taken up by caretaker governments which first prepared the general election and then managed ordinary administration until a new government was formed.
Cossiga himself in the past has had an unforced and uninhibited relationship with the Communists, much as Aldo Moro had. Cossiga and Berlinguer are cousins. The murder of Moro and the departure of Cossiga from the Ministry of the Interior deprived the Communists of the two most eminent Christian Democrats with whom they could talk. But the fact that Cossiga is back does not mean that the old collaboration with the Communists will return. The Communists themselves could not afford this: the discontent of their own rank and file, at what many of them felt to be the anomaly of providing formal support for a purely Christian Democrat administration, was one of the reasons why Berlinguer was forced to bring down the government seven months ago — and inevitably set in motion the confused process which led to the general election and its aftermath. Cossiga himself is wise enough to know that, for the moment, the Communist issue is best left as far as possible from the centre of the stage. He nevertheless made an appeal to Parliament during the confidence debate for help, in return for his own pledge of respect for Parliament's full prerogatives of supervision over the government's activities, and he specifically mentioned the opposition in this respect.
This was not rhetoric. Cossiga's own pro fessorship is in Constitutional Law and he is sincerely interested in constitutional prac tice. The type of government he leads offers him some space for manoeuvring against the party machines which for years have eclipsed Parliament. His own party was too distracted by its internal griefs to bother with directives. As a result he had an unusu ally free hand in choosing his ministers. The outcome is a mixed bunch which includes a certain amount of deaa wood, but some of the blooms themselves are quite bright. All three financial ministries, for example, are in able and practically non-political hands — in the sense that the incumbents are not interested in political intrigue. Cossiga's own successor at the Ministry of the Interior, Virgilio Rognoni, has had some success in arresting alleged terrorists and remains at his post. Cossiga has put members of the Liberal Party at the Ministries of Health and Education which should help to keep them free from confessional pressures.
The Liberals are glad to be back in office after years in the political wilderness and should make dependable partners. And Cossiga's other ally; the Social Democrats, have taken three ministries but the party leadership issued the odd statement that their vote in favour of the government was 'of limited political significance' and was intended more to allow the formation of a government than to express conviction in this one. Cossiga can hardly be blamed if he feels independent of the Social Democrat leadership, yet reasonably certain of the loyalty of the three Social Democrat members of his cabinet.
This new government is thus a tripartite coalition freer than usual from the dictates of the parties. It does not have a majority but won its vote of confidence because of the abstentions of the Socialists and the Republicans. The margin in the Chamber was 287 to 242 with 65 abstentions. The Communists opposed. Governments come and go in Italy at an average rate of more than one a year. The advent of a new one is not necessarily of paramount interest. This one, moreover, owes much of its character to the fact that the June general election was too faint in its indications of the electorate's feeling. Elections in Italy are never decisive but they manage at times to reflect shifts of political thinking. The Communists were the main losers last time and the Christian Democrats held their ground but were unable to exploit the Wojtyla phenomenon — though they are supposed to be the Catholic party. And so the moral could be drawn that people were tired of the alliance between the two big parties, the Christian Democrats and the Communists, which had emerged strongly in 1956 (in the general election before last) when the Communists made big gains. Cossiga has been given no such clear sense of direction. This time much will depend on the Prime Minister's own originality. And the sandcastle left by the politicians before they left for their holidays may turn out to be more resilient than they thought.
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