ITALIAN REGIME

Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29177, 11 April 1960, Page 19

ITALIAN REGIME

Crucial Vote For Premier (N.Z. Press ROME, April 8. The new all-Christian Democrat minority Government led by Mr Fernando Tambroni faces its first and crucial vote of confidence in the Chamber of Deputies (Lower House) today. The vote will be taken after Mr Tambroni has replied to criticisms expressed during a three-day debate which ended last night on his investiture speech. In the speech, he asked the House to lay aside politics and back his strictly “administrative” Government so it could deal with the nation’s urgent business. The chances of the survival of the 21-Minister Government appear to rest today on the votes of 24 neo-Fascist deputies. These, and three independent Monarchists also expected to back Mr Tambroni, would give the Prime Minister a majority of one—enough to confirm him as Italy’s twenty-first Prime Minister since the fall of Fascism.

But observers said dependence on the neo-Fascists would be a further severe strain on the unity of the ruling Christian Democrats, already deeply split into Left and Right-wing factions. Mr Tambroni warned in his investiture speech that a continuation of the crisis, Italy’s worst since World War 11, would seriously shake popular confidence in Italian democracy institutions and harm Italy’s prestige abroad.