The Soloists

"The Italian way of life," Luigi Barzini argued in The Italians, "makes laws and institutions function defectively. The unsolved problems pile up and inevitably produce catastrophes at regular intervals." Last week, with a mountainous heap of unsolved problems plaguing the nation, Italy's national government was running one step ahead of catastrophe. After seven unsettling weeks of government by caretaker, Christian Democrat Mariano Rumor finally put together a coalition Cabinet that was acceptable to the same grouping of center and left-wing parties that has ruled Italy, after a fashion, for the past seven years. It was the third government under Rumor, a 53-year-old bachelor and former schoolteacher, and Italy's 28th in 25 years.

The Italian way, as TIME's Rome Bureau Chief James Bell explains, is based on unreconstructed individualism. Everyone fancies himself the tenor singing a solo at La Scala; nobody is willing to settle for serving as the relatively faceless member of a big choir. "There isn't a political leader in the country," one party boss candidly admits, "who will subordinate his party's desires to the good of the state." For that matter, there is probably not a political leader who would subordinate his own personal ambitions to the good of his party, either. The result: everybody singing solos all at once.

Exercise in Frustration. The latest crisis was precipitated by a split in Italy's fracture-prone Socialist Party. Until 1966 the Socialists functioned as two separate parties, Giuseppe Saragat's moderates and Pietro Nenni's leftists. They then closed ranks and served as one party in the center-left coalition. But last July they broke up again over the question of cooperating with the Communists in local governments. The moderates, who wanted to stay clear of the Communists, reconstituted themselves as the Social Democrats; Nenni's faction, figuring that the Communists had to be reckoned with, if only because of their strength at the polls (they regularly command one-quarter of the national vote), became simply the Socialist Party. This split in the coalition forced Rumor to dissolve his entire government.

When the former coalition members failed to agree on how to regroup. Rumor and his Christian Democrats were left operating a minority one-party, or monocolore, government. After a terrorist bomb killed 16 people in a Milan bank last December, Rumor decided that it was time to share responsibility with a few other parties. What he thought would be a simple bit of Cabinetmaking, however, turned into an exercise in frustration.

For three weeks, Rumor struggled unsuccessfully to strike a compromise that would satisfy all parties. He failed. Aldo Moro and Amintore Fanfani, two former Premiers and the current contenders to succeed Saragat as President of Italy, also gave it a try. Finally, Saragat persuaded Rumor to try once more, and this time the Cabinetmaker succeeded. It was not that the other parties liked his proposals. It was just that they feared the alternative--a costly general election three years ahead of schedule.

Such politicking leaves little time for effective government; and Italy, for all its economic vigor, is otherwise in disarray. The country ranks an embarrassing 20th in per capita income ($1,400 per year) among nations, trailing not only Japan but all of Western Europe's major industrial states. Italian workers are unhappy about low wages. Students complain about overcrowded universities. The country's penal code is outdated. Seven out of ten Italians polled recently in a public-opinion survey were disgusted enough to say that they were willing to vote temporary power to an "honest, energetic and disinterested" dictator. In moments of great frustration, traffic jams or trains that do not run on time, Italians are apt to snap that "If lui were here, this wouldn't happen." Lui--"he" in Italian--is the nation's last dictator. Benito Mussolini.

Power to the Center. Italy's government is hopelessly out of touch with the people today. The church-orierited Christian Democrats, who receive about 40% of the vote in general elections, regularly dominate. Their prime concern up to now has not been to formulate needed programs but to deny power to extreme right-and left-wing parties--particularly the Communists, now the second biggest party. The Vatican meddles clumsily in domestic politics. One of the hottest issues in Italy today is whether to allow civil divorces; a bill approving divorce has already cleared the Chamber of Deputies and is now before the Senate. Pope Paul delayed the formation of a new government by several weeks by openly and vigorously opposing the bill.

The new Cabinet that Rumor escorted to the Palazzo Quirinale last week to meet Saragat is unlikely to improve the situation. It is the least government that could have been provided rather than the most. Moreover, no one expects it to last much longer than the regional elections scheduled for late May. The odds are that at least one party in the coalition will conclude from these elections that the conditions are ripe for it to seize center stage. Then it will walk out of Italy's 28th postwar government, and begin agitating self-servingly for a 29th.

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