The Voters' Corrivo

Thirty-six hours before voters went to the polls last week in municipal and regional elections, Italy's small but increasingly influential neo-Fascist party, the Movimento Sociale Italiano (M.S.I.), staged a victory celebration in Rome's swank Casina Valadier restaurant. Ordinarily the script might call for the premature celebrators to come up with pasta all over their faces, but, when the election results came in last week, the M.S.I.'s self-confidence proved to be justified. In Sicily, Rome and 157 other cities, a determined get-out-the-vote campaign helped lure more than 96% of the eligible voters to the polls. The neo-Fascists captured 13.9% of the vote, nearly double what they received in the last provincial and municipal elections, and the largest gain made by any party since Italy resumed voting after World War II.

The M.S.I, gains do not mean that Fascism is running rampant over the boot, or even that the center-left balance of power has been significantly altered. Most of the balloting, involving nearly one-fifth of Italy's 37 million voters, took place in the conservative south; it almost certainly would have presented a vastly altered picture if it had included the large industrial, traditionally leftist cities, of the north. Nonetheless, the show of neo-Fascist strength seemed to be a vigorous protest against the wave of strikes and disorders, the rising unemployment and the sluggish pace of reforms that have afflicted Italy for the past three years. Said Socialist Giacomo Mancini, whose party is the second strongest in the ruling coalition: "The M.S.I, would not have gained so much if the coalition had defended, sustained and carried forward reforms in housing, health and schools."

Anger & Frustration. Most of the neo-Fascist votes were picked up at the expense of the Christian Democrats, Italy's dominant political organization. Last week the Christian Democrats registered 31% of the total vote, compared with 35.2% in last year's regional elections. Except for Genoa, where they preserved their old power balance with one-third of the tally, the Communists also dropped votes. The M.S.I, gains were most pronounced in Sicily, where the party picked up eight seats for a total of 15 in the regional legislature. The Christian Democrats, by comparison, lost seven seats, which left them with 29. The Sicilian vote was interpreted as a response to a wave of Mafia terrorism.

Typical of the anger and frustration prevailing in Italy's impoverished south was the situation in Catania, an industrial city at the foot of Mount Etna. Projected only a few years ago as the Milan of the south, the city today is overwhelmed by seemingly unsolvable credit difficulties. Voters there gave the neo-Fascists an impressive 21.5% of the vote. "It was a corrivo," said a worker. The word means "a boom of rage."

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