Word: segni
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...Antonio Segni's frail physique conceals a formidable will. Says a friend: "He is like the Colosseum; he looks like a ruin but he'll be around for a long time." Last week slight, silver-haired Segni, 71, proved the accuracy of the description. He outlasted his rivals during five days of cutthroat politicking and nine closely contested ballots in the Chamber of Deputies, was finally elected to a seven-year term as President of Italy. Quipped Antonio Segni's partisans in a somewhat blasphemous parody of the miraculous vision that came to the Emperor Constantine...
...Segni's chief rival for the job, which combines ceremonial functions with such real political leverage as the power to dissolve Parliament and veto legislation, was formally undeclared but well known just the same. He was fellow Christian Democrat Premier Amintore Fanfani, who had recently picked staunchly pro-Western Segni as Foreign Minister to balance his new center-left coalition, the much debated apertura a sinistra. Fanfani figured that by stubbornly clinging to about 40 votes that Segni needed to win, the deadlocked chamber would promote him to chief of state...
Hollow Boast. Fanfani's severe case of presidential fever was finally cured by six Cabinet members who threatened to quit if the Premier did not abandon his ambitions. Fanfani then released the 40-odd votes he controlled. As applause greeted the tally that clinched Segni's election, Fanfani stared sullenly into the television camera. Taking defeat more gracefully was Segni's closest open opponent, moderate Social Democrat Giuseppe Saragat, who, as a partner in the government coalition, may be named Foreign Minister to fill Segni's now vacant position...
...election of Segni, the candidate of the right and a firm supporter of NATO, took five days, nine ballots, and a ten-minute brawl between deputies of the left and right benches of the Chamber. Curiously, though, it has not yet antagonized the coalition's left so much as rigidified opposition to the coalition on the Christian Democratic right. Incensed by the desertion of Segni in the early ballots by the party's left, the right now threatens the effective withdrawal of support from the government...
Until now, Nenni, the Socialist leader, and Christian Democratic Political Secretary Aldo Moro have done masterful jobs controlling the powerful dissident factions in their parties. The defection of the dissident wing of either party would fell the government, and Segni's election may be the beginning of a series of attacks and counter-attacks leading to defection and the coalition's fall. To compensate for Segni's election, the coalition's left is now expected to demand that the Foreign Ministry which Segni vacates be filled from their ranks. To secure the reforms which the government promises and Italy desperately...