Italy’s poll date fixed

Press, 7 May 1983, Page 11

Italy’s poll date fixed

NZPA-Reuter Rome Italy’s caretaker Government yesterday fixed June 26 as the date for an early General Election after efforts to keep the two-house Parliament alive had failed. A Cabinet meeting chaired by the caretaker Prime Minister, Mr Amintore Fanfani, who resigned last Friday as head of the country’s forty-third postwar Government chose a date already earmarked for local elections in much of the country. President Sandro Pertini was due to issue a presidential decree on the election date. In the election, some 45 million registered voters Will get a chance to elect a new, five-year legislature that will begin sitting ftom July 12. Mr Pertini dissolved the legislature, more than a year ahead of constitutional requirements, after lastditch attempts to form a governing coalition col-

lapsed. As the 45-day election campaign began, politicians of both Left and Right expressed hope that the election would give a clearer mandate to tackle pressing economic problems, including an annual rate of inflation now running at 16.6 per cent. The President had no choice but to dissolve Parliament after talks with the Senate leader, Tommaso Morlino, showed that there was no chance of forming a coalition that would last out the remaining 14 months of the legislature. The Socialist Party precipitated the latest crisis by announcing last month that it would withdraw from the Fanfani’s Centrist Government leaving him without a Parliamentary majority. The 630 members of the Chamber of Deputies (lower house) and 315 Senators (upper house) will be chosen according to proportional representation.