Adjusting the Apertura

Ever since Premier Amintore Fanfani teamed up with Pietro Nenni's Socialists almost a year ago to form Italy's apertura a sinistra ("opening to the left"), the uneasy alliance has been clouded by a single issue: Nenni's demand for the creation of 15 regional administrations that he figures will boost his party's grass-roots support. Fanfani agreed to pay Nenni's price because he needed the Socialists' 88 votes in the Chamber of Deputies in order to stay in power, but he stalled on enacting the scheme just the same.

Fanfani feared that the Socialists would sign local electoral agreements with Communists and thereby convert the new regions into leftist strongholds. Even after Nenni pledged not to cooperate with the Reds, many of Fanfani's Christian Democrats remained skeptical of his promise. With Nenni demanding quick action on the regional plan, the looming alternative was compromise or collapse of the coalition.

Last week Fanfani acted. After nine hours of argument, Christian Democrats and their two smaller coalition partners agreed to introduce promptly two bills covering taxation and administration of the regions; they postponed legislation actually creating them until a new Parliament convenes after national elections in May.

The Socialists grumbled bitterly, but Nenni urged them to bide their time. "If there's going to be a government crisis," he told a meeting of his party's central committee, "it's not going to be caused by us." Nenni has his eye on a Cabinet post in a new government; causing a crisis at the moment would be irresponsible, for Fanfani this week goes off to visit John F. Kennedy, and in a fortnight Harold Macmillan arrives in Rome. Fellow travelers in the Socialist high command were willing, even anxious, to topple the government, but as the party continued its talks at week's end, it appeared that Nenni--and the coalition--would squeak through.

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