Italian election Neo-Fascists gain

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32634, 16 June 1971, Page 17

Italian election Neo-Fascists gain

<NZP.A-Reuter— Copyright) ROME, June 15.

Italy’s neo-Fascist party rode a wave of national discontent to make record gains yesterday in Sicily’s regional elections and become the third largest party in the island’s parliament.

Mr Giorgio Almirante,| aged 56, leader of the neo-Fascist Italian Social Movement (M.S.L), declared exultantly ’after the results came in, “We are the only winners in this electoral contest, and we have won, as the figures show, in a crushing fashion.” His party, which fought the elections on a programme of law and order and anti-com-munism, gained seven seats in the 90-member regional Parliament.

The neo-Fasclsts now hold 15 seats, fewer only than the Christian Democrats and the Communists, and are an important force to be reckoned with in the formation of a new regional government. The party also made big gains in Rome as early results poured in after polling to elect new provincial and municipal administrations. With most of the votes declared in the Rome provincial election, its share of the poll had risen to 15.8 per cent from 10.7 per cent in last year’s regional elections. In the province of Foggia, it showed a gain of about 4 per cent, in Bari 2.6 per cent, and in Genoa 1 per cent.

The success of the party, whose leader was a devoted follower of Mussolini, comes against a background of national discontent caused by an economic recession, labour unrest, mounting crime and

political violence, and political instability. The chief loser in the elections—to choose 160 town councils and two provincial administrations apart from the Sicilian Parliament—was Italy’s biggest party, the Christian Democrats.

The party slumped badly in Sicily, losing seven seats and 6.4 per cent of the votes compared with the last regional election of 1967 and in Rome lost 3.8 per cent. But despite these and other set-backs, it held its own in the big cities of Bari and Genoa.

There were fears that the Christian Democrat losses could affect the Government’s stability. The Christian Democrat Party secretary, Mr Arnaldo Forlani, said after the Sicilian results were declared that there had been “a very strong swing to the Right, unfortunately in a completely negative and dangerous direction.” It was a result ‘•which aggravates all problems and eases none,” he added.