Italian President Elected

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30636, 30 December 1964, Page 9

Italian President Elected

(N.Z. Press Association —Copyright) ROME, December 29. Italy’s Parliament last night successfully elected its fifth President of Italy after an unprecedented 13-day struggle.

The new President is a 66-year-old Social Democrat, Mr Guiseppe Saragat, at present Foreign Minister. Members of Parliament

and the Communists announced acceptance of his candidacy. The election was a major political defeat for the Christian Democrats, who had constituted Italy’s dominant party since the war. They had tried to elect one of their own number, the former Premier, Giovanni Leone. They failed. They had vowed to elect a President without Communists playing a significant role. They failed there, too. Mr Saragat received 646 votes: Gaetan Martino, Liberal Party, 56; Augusto de Marsanioii, Italian Social Movement (Fascist), 40; blank ballots, 15; abstentions, 10. Other votes were scattered or void.

rose to their feet and broke into enthusiastic clapping when Mr Saragat’s votes—in the twenty-first ballot—touched 482, the number required to give him an absolute majority. He became the country’s first Socialist chief of state and won with Communist backing. Mr Saragat, founder of the Italian Democratic Socialist Party, also had the official backing of the Christian Democrat Party, the big losers in the election. Mr Saragat, who had fought communism for years, accepted Communist backing to break a deadlock that had paralysed Parliament and strained the four party Centre-Left Government coali-

tion of Premier Aldo Moro. Mr Saragat succeeds Antonio Segni who has resigned because of ill health. The Socialist Deputy Premier Pietro Nenni, who had led on the past four ballots, withdrew in Saragat’s favour after the Foreign Minister issued a brief statement asking for votes of “all Democratic and anti-Fascist groups.” Christian Democrat leaders had backed Mr Saragat on the past three ballots, as he ran behind Mr Nenni. The Christian Democrats had been saying publicly they favoured Mr Saragat, but did not want him elected with decisive Communist support. Yet they stayed with him as he issued his statement