From: clarinews@clarinet.com (CHARLES RIDLEY)
Newsgroups: clari.news.gov.international,clari.news.election,clari.news.europe,clari.news.politics,biz.clarinet.sample
Followup-to: biz.clarinet.sample
Message-id: <italy-electionsU2A6340pe@clarinet.com>
Subject: Vote projections indicate new political era in Italy
Keywords: international, non-usa government, government, election, politics,
	political parties
Date: Mon, 6 Apr 92 12:47:05 PDT
Location: italy
ACategory: international
Slugword: italy-elections
Priority: regular
Format: regular
X-Supersedes: <italy-electionsU2A61135ae@clarinet.com>
ANPA: Wc: 621; Id: z4868; Sel: xxigf; Adate: 4-6-340ped; Ver: insert
Codes: yigfrxx., yiperit., yipprit.
Note: (4grafinsert2ndgraf xxx elections. pickup4thgraf: a surge -- protest
 vote less than expected, tightening)

	ROME (UPI) -- Election projections indicated Monday that Italy is
headed for a new and uncertain political future as government parties
failed to win a majority of the popular vote in national elections.
	Projections by the Milan-based Doxa Institute, which have been
reliable to within a fraction of 1 percent in past elections, showed
that the four parties of Prime Minister Giulio Andreotti's outgoing
coalition -- Christian Democrats, Socialists, Liberals and Social
Democrats -- together achieved 48.2 percent of the vote -- just short of
the 50 percent they needed to form a majority government.
	With the 5 percent scored by the Republican Party, a longtime
government ally which quit the coalition in April 1991, the five
traditional parties would total more than 50 percent. But the
Republicans have said they would re-join the government only on terms
that may prove unacceptable.
	The prospect emerged that the Christian Democrats could succeed in
patching together a government. It is unlikely the diverse parties that
formed the ``protest vote'' could get together to form a majority team.
	``This new situation is full of questions and confusion,'' Christian
Democrat Party Secretary Arnaldo Forlani said in a telvision interview.
	A surge of the so-called ``protest vote'' factions indicated
confusing times ahead for Italy in forming a government strong enough to
tackle the enormous public debt and revamp archaic political
institutions.
	The first projections were based on the Senate vote because those
ballots were the first to be counted after voting in the Sunday-Monday
Parliamentary elections ended at 2 p.m.
	The Christian Democrats, who have dominated all 50 Italian
governments since World War II, lost votes to an array of opposition
protest parties.
	The protest parties sprang up with the end of the threat of a
political takeover by the West's biggest communmist party, a casualty of
the Cold War the West won.
	The projections showed the Christian Democrats big losers, with only
26.2 percent of the vote compared to the 34.3 percent they achieved in
the last general election of 1987. But the Christian Democrats remained
the strongest party.
	The Socialist Party, main allies of the Christian Democrats in the
Andreotti government, tallied 13.5 percent, against 14.3 percent in
1987.
	Of the two small coalition parties, the Liberals advanced to 3
percent, up from 2.1 percent in 1987 and the Social Democrats dropped to
2.2 percent from 2.9 percent.
	The Republican Party, which split from Andreotti's government in
April, 1991 and remains on bitter terms, gleaned 5.2 percent, up from 3.
7 percent in 1987.
	The former Communist Party, competing under its new name Party of the
Democratic Left (PDS), gleaned only 16.7 percent, but remained Italy's
second strongest party, well ahead of its socialist rivals.
	Taken together with the Communist Refoundation Party, which split
from the main Communist alignment when it changed its name and which got
6.2 percent of the vote, the total of the two parties was 22.9 percent
as against 26.6 percent in 1987.
	As expected the so-called Leagues, campaigning mainly on local
interests, got about 10 percent of the vote. The main ``Northern
Leagues'' group scored 8.7 percent and other Leagues together grabbed 1.
9 percent.
	The extreme right-wing Italian Social Movement (MSI) moved up to 6.9
percent from 5.9 percent in 1987 and the various ``Greens'' environment
groups won 3.2 percent against 2.5 percent in 1987.
Xref: sparky clari.news.gov.international:231 clari.news.military:23 clari.news.hot.east_europe:82 clari.news.hot.ussr:66 clari.news.issues.conflict:11 clari.news.politics:513 biz.clarinet.sample:1139