Word: socialistic
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Pertini had been among the early favorites soon after the electors gathered to choose a successor to Giovanni Leone, who abruptly resigned last month in a cloud of scandal over alleged tax evasion and financial improprieties. Pertini's Socialist Party, the country's third largest, had aggressively sought the presidency from the start, as a sign that it was not about to be submerged by the growing accord of Italy's two dominant parties, the Christian Democrats and Communists...
Aware that a Communist President was not in the cards despite the party's growing national acceptance, the Communists were willing to promote Pertini out of leftist loyalty. In addition, the avuncular, pipe-smoking Socialist, a former speaker of the Chamber of Deputies, was acceptable to the centrist Republicans and Social Democrats who complete the five-party parliamentary majority that supports the government of Christian Democratic Premier Giulio Andreotti...
...President has the power to appoint premiers and to choose the moment for calling national elections. For that reason, the Christian Democrats were reluctant to surrender their hold on the office to another party. Beyond that, they felt that Pertini was being "imposed" on them by the ambitious Socialist leader Bettino Craxi. While negotiations to break the impasse continued behind closed doors, the electors went through 15 inconclusive ballots, with the proceedings broadcast on national television. Although Pertini was their compromise candidate, the Communists on early ballots cast symbolic votes for a favorite son, Party Elder Giorgio Amendola...
After Pertini disengaged from formal Socialist backing by withdrawing briefly, the Christian Democrats finally relented. On Saturday's 16th ballot, Pertini won with 832 votes-the largest total ever gained by an Italian presidential candidate. Although many right-wing Christian Democrats were disappointed by the outcome, few had any personal quarrel with Pertini. A native of Savona, on the Italian Riviera, he was imprisoned several times between 1925 and the end of World War II for his underground resistance work-first against Mussolini's fascist regime, later against the Nazis. He was co-founder of the postwar Socialist...
Critic Walter Benjamin had no claims on fame and little influence during his lifetime. He committed suicide in September 1940 at the Franco-Spanish border when his exit visa was not accepted and he feared, as a Jew and socialist intellectual, forced repatriation to Germany. His essays were not collected and published until 1955. Thirteen years later they were translated into English and appeared under the title Illuminations. By that time, Benjamin had become a posthumous culture hero of Europe's new left...