Italian Efforts To Form Govt

Press, Issue 32345, 10 July 1970, Page 13

Italian Efforts To Form Govt

(N .Z.P.A.-Reuter—Copyright) ROME, July 9. President Giuseppe Saragat today will go into a second round of consultations with leading politicians to try to unravel Italy’s latest Government crisis amid recurring accusations that the turmoil was deliberately provoked.

President Saragat last night began his attempt to pave the way for a leading politician to take up the task of forming a new government His first caller was a former President Mr Giuseppe Gronchi.

By tomorrow night he hopes to see some 40 other leading political figures before asking a top Christian Democrat to head a new Cabinet

The 100-day coalition Government of Christian Democrats, Socialists, Social Democrats and Republicans headed by Mr Mariano Rumor, 'esigned unexpectedly on Monday. It was the thirty-first Government Italy has had since the fall of Mussolini.

The Left-wing press has been speculating that Mr Rumor’s resignation was aimed at frightening the Socialists with the threat of a general election, followed perhaps by a Government from which they would be excluded

The Right-wing press, on the other hand, has blamed the Socialists for the present crisis, saying it wa-, their insistence on forming regional alliances with the Communists which provoked it Some well-informed political sources, however, are of the view that the crisis stems from the result of a power struggle between Left and Right-wing forces within the Christian Democrats—ltaly’s largest political party. 1