An Italian Ex-Premier Tests the Quality of Voters' Mercy

A former Prime Minister and leader of the once-ruling, now-defunct Christian Democratic Party, he is not under indictment.  And after a two-year absence, he's back, running for Parliament from his home district in the hills east of Naples. 

Hailed here as a local hero, Mr. De Mita, who has spent 30 of his 68 years serving in the Italian Parliament, is almost sure to win in the April 21 elections, notwithstanding his national reputation as one of the pillars of a corrupt, discredited system. 

Ever the professional, even after his self-imposed political exile, he sees his return to the ring as a chance to show that Italy's old-style politicians still have a lesson or two to teach the upstarts who succeeded them. 

"There was a strong reaction in Italy against the old ruling class, and not just against the Christian Democrats," Mr. De Mita said in a recent interview in his villa here. " But the new politicians created the illusion -- and it has been proved to be an illusion -- that a change of guard would be enough to solve Italy's problems.  That is not so." 

This time, Mr. De Mita is running with only tenuous links to a political organization -- the newly formed center-left coalition.  But his modern villa, built on the edge of his native village, surrounded by green lawns and high walls topped with electronic security devices, is once again a magnet for hangers-on, supplicants and local political bosses, a typical entourage for a southern Italian politician of the old school. 

"The fact that De Mita was not in Parliament for these last two years, well, for the people around here, it was as if these two years never happened," said Prof. Agostino Maiurano, the Mayor of Nusco, a hill town of 5,000. " We were all waiting for the new candidacy to come." 

Most Italians have already accepted the fact that the collapse of the old system, deeply tainted by scandal, did not automatically usher in the so-called Second Republic, a mirage that holds out the promise of political stability and two-party politics.  Political reform, taken half-way, has produced more confusion, and the upcoming elections, anchored by two flimsy coalitions, promise to lead to the same political stalemate, with many of the same players. 

"There are a lot of recycled people in both camps, right and left," said Sergio Romano, a political columnist for La Stampa, the Turin daily, "and that is creating an embarrassment that has put people ill at ease." 

Yet somehow, the return of Mr. De Mita was seen as a particularly brazen comeback, on par with, hypothetically, attempted returns by the likes of the former Prime Minister Bettino Craxi, now living in Tunisia with international warrants out for his arrest, or the former Prime Minister Giulio Andreotti, facing charges for association with the Mafia and complicity with the Mafia in a murder. 

One reason is that Mr. De Mita's name is popularly linked with a scandal that lumped together several criminal and parliamentary investigations into the $35 billion in state aid that came pouring into the Irpinia region after a 1980 earthquake that left almost 3,000 dead and 265,000 homeless. 

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That the Irpinia reconstruction program was mishandled, even Mr. De Mita agrees.  Villages that never suffered earthquake damage received aid; farmers were compensated not for the value of what they lost, but for what they wanted; factories were built, and failed before they opened; uncompleted public works projects, from highways to grandiose theatres, litter the landscape. 

But after a lengthy investigation, Mr. De Mita was never indicted, unlike the thousands of other Italian officials caught up in the corruption scandals that swept the country in the early 1990's and led to the collapse of the old political structure. 

For many of Italy's more cynical citizens, not being indicted is not exactly tantamount to exoneration.  But it was enough for Mr. De Mita to return to politics, facing down the opposition of new members of the center-left coalition, known as Olive Tree after its symbol, who did not want to be saddled with a remnant of the old guard. 

For his part, Mr. De Mita does little to hide his contempt for Italy's new breed of politicians, whom he accuses of pandering to the voters. 

"We are living at a risky moment with regards to democracy," he said. " We are allowing the public to get used to the idea that politics is all about asking for things, rather than making a choice.  And the entire political class is fomenting this illusion.  They say we should create jobs and lower taxes, but politicians should also say how these things will be done." 

In this campaign, Mr. De Mita himself is making no promises, in part because he doesn't have to. 

"There is a popular feeling for me here," he said. " Even those who never voted for me appreciate the things I have done for the area.  Before, we were a closed mountain area; now we have broken out of a state of abandonment.  In the past 15 years, Irpinia became Italy's fastest growing region, and people understand why." 

And on the streets of Avellino, a nearby town that serves as a regional center, most people seem to look on Mr. De Mita as a local-boy-makes-good. 

"He's always done good for the area," said Linda, 45, who sells shoes and declined to give her last name. " Sure he was investigated, but everyone was investigated, so why should they leave him out?  But he raised our region out of poverty, and he has to be respected because, after all, he was once Prime Minister."