Word: cossiga
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...With the deft touch of political prestidigitators, Italian party leaders last week made a government crisis disappear as if it had never happened. Two weeks after Prime Minister Bettino Craxi had marched up Rome's Quirinal Hill to present his resignation to Italy's President Francesco Cossiga over his handling of the Achille Lauro hijacking, Craxi returned to reclaim his place as leader of his five-party ruling coalition. The President and the four other coalition partners decided to consider Craxi's resignation provisional, thereby allowing the same government with the same policies to continue. After an expected vote...
...parliament, the Prime Minister delivered a spirited defense of his actions during the hijacking ordeal. Then Craxi made the five-minute trip to President Francesco Cossiga's Quirinale Palace to resign. Craxi's government had served 26 months, which was one month shy of the tenure record for the 44 governments Italy has had in the past 39 years. Instead, the outgoing coalition earned a new distinction: it was the first one to fall owing to a foreign policy crisis rather than a domestic one. At week's end Cossiga was carrying on discussions with all of the country...
...many Italians, the harmonious mood at the auto plant was the first accomplishment of their country's new government, and a possible harbinger of its durability. The Fiat dispute had contributed to the defeat of the outgoing Cabinet led by Prime Minister Francesco Cossiga, which collapsed in September after losing a secret-ballot vote on its economic program. Everyone knew that the strike settlement was related to a four-party political deal that had spawned a new government headed by Christian Democratic Prime Minister Arnaldo Forlani. Last week, drawing a comfortable majority of 52 in a parliamentary vote...
...left coalition, with 27 Cabinet posts distributed according to a classic division of spoils: 14 for the dominant Christian Democrats (who won 38% of the vote in last year's election), seven for the Socialists (10%), and three each for the Social Democrats (4%) and Republicans (3%). Like Cossiga, Forlani, 54, is an affable, middle-of-the-road veteran of Rome's political wars, whose previous post was president of the Christian Democratic Party...
...then was Forlani being given a somewhat better chance of survival? For one thing, he appeared to have a broader base of support within his own party, having assigned three Cabinet seats to its mutinous left wing; some of its members had been suspected of having helped bring down Cossiga by voting against the government in the secret ballot. For another, Forlani had a strongly reinforced Socialist Party behind him, thanks to the aggressive leadership of its burly party secretary, Bettino Craxi, 46. Three weeks ago, Craxi unexpectedly announced an alliance with the Social Democrats and brought them into...