Word: government
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...scramble caused by another Premier's fall, the Christian Democrats groped for a new candidate to govern Italy. The key man in the operation turned out to be a practiced and familiar politico: Alcide de Gasperi...
...crisis could be dramatized in cold, simple arithmetic: the Christian Democrats, who govern Italy, hold only 44.4% of the seats in the Chamber of Deputies. Italy's Communist Party, the largest, strongest, richest and smartest this side of the Iron Curtain, controls 36.9%. With a switch of only 24 seats-4%-from the center to the Communist-controlled side (i.e., Communists and the Red Socialists of Pietro Nenni), the Red left would be the dominant bloc in Italian politics. And on the far right, with 4.9% of the Chamber's seats, sit the neo-Fascists-often willing helpers...
...hair, 55,000 votes out of 28 million, the De Gasperi coalition missed winning the parliamentary bonus which De Gasperi's electoral reform law held out to any party or coalition winning more than 50% of the popular vote. De Gasperi could not assemble a majority to govern...
...Caretaker. Last August Giuseppe Pella got power chiefly because he promised not to exert it. He is a Christian Democrat, and he served for five years in De Gasperi's government as the brilliantly successful keeper of the budget. But Giuseppe Pella had no political organization of his own, no party faction behind him. The party did not choose him to be Premier. It was not even consulted in advance. Pella's old friend and mentor, President Luigi Einaudi, tapped Pella because he merely wanted someone to govern as a caretaker while the Christian Democrats settled among themselves...
...confusion of class bitterness and divided counsels, Italy began the delicate search for someone to govern. Narrow as they were, the figures still favor the democratic center. Strong enough to gain from dissension, patient enough to wait for chaos, the Communists are still neither able nor willing to take power legally. The far right is imposing enough to harass, but too weak to be a threat. Only the Christian Democrats have the chance to patch together a parliamentary majority...