CAMPAIGN CLOSES

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26749, 19 April 1948, Page 5

CAMPAIGN CLOSES

ITALIAN ELECTIONS CHAOTIC SCENES IN ROME Rec. 9 p.m. ROME, Apl. 16. The Prime Minister, Signor Alcide de Gasperi, addressing 80,000 people in Naples in his closing speech in the election campaign, said that the Christian Democrats’ policy was co-opera-tion in the Marshall Plan. He added that Italy would be the battleground of the next war if the Communists won the election. Christian Democrat supporters then paraded the streets cheering and singing songs. In Rome 25,000 people singing the “ Red Flag and waving crimson banners greeted the Communist leader, Signor Palmiro Togliatti, when he closed his campaign. A Monarchist plane, during Signor Togliatti’s speech, flew overhead and showered anticommunist leaflets on the crowd. Signor Togliatti demanded that a Coalition Government of all parties be formed after the elections. The Communists put on a great firework display as a prelude to Signor Togliatti’s speech. During the display the police were inundated with urgent telephone calls asking whether a revolution had broken out.

The campaign’s climax in Rome has been terrific. The city presented a scene of indescribable chaos as lorry loads of leaflets carpeted the streets with appeals, threats, denunciations, and promises. Cars with loudspeakers toured the main thoroughfares blaring slogans and music. In one Rome square 10,000 people sang Fascist hymns as the Italian Social Movement Party held its last meeting of the campaign in the light of thousands of torches.

The first Senate result is expected to be announced late at night on Monday, and the first Lower House result in the afternoon of Tuesday. It is hoped that definite results will be known on Wednesday. Reuter’s Milan correspondent says spectacular rises in share prices have reflected the confidence in an anticommunist election victory. The Italian Patriotic Association in Trieste is sending to Italy a message, which 785,000 people have signed, asking electors to “ remember Trieste. We hope to be in the Italy of the future.”