The Making of a Pres/denfe

Originally intended as a largely ceremonial post, the presidency of Italy has grown in power and prestige as successive postwar Cabinet coalitions have proved incapable of dealing with the nation's problems. The President has the authority to appoint the Premier and his ministers, to help set the tone of foreign and domestic policy by his appointments, and to cow squabbling politicians by threatening to call elections at almost any time. He also has the ability to plunge Italian politics into months of utter chaos every seven years by the mere process of getting himself elected. Avoiding Snipers. Last week 1,008 electors (630 Deputies, 320 Senators and 58 regional representatives) were in the process of naming a successor to Giuseppe Saragat, whose term expires Dec. 28. The chosen electors went about that serious task with all the noble intent and show of national interest of a group of condottieri.

The rules of the game preclude primaries or campaigning by the candidates. The choice is made by secret ballot, which allows a maximum of wheeling, dealing, intrigue and fine Italian double-cross. The object is to see who can garner the most votes from the other parties, since no party in Italy's fractional politics enjoys anything remotely resembling a majority. The candidate must also avoid defections from within his own party. Such defectors are known as tiratori franchi, or snipers. The game is so complex that Saragat was elected in 1964 only after 21 ballots, taken over the course of 13 days.

The apparent leader before the balloting began last week was Amintore Fanfani, 63, four times Premier and most recently president of the Senate. A short (he claims to be 5 ft. 6 in.), brusque, brash former economics professor, he is the candidate of the Christian Democrats, the largest party in the governing center-left coalition. Should he falter, former Premier Aldo Moro is more than willing to replace him. Moro, also a Christian Democrat, has visibly moved from the center toward the left of late, even as Fanfani was moving from left to center. Fanfani's other chief rival is Francesco de Martino, Deputy Premier and the candidate of the Socialist Party, who has a firm promise of support from Italy's second largest party, the Communists. Leading a host of lesser candidates and potential contenders is President Saragat himself, who in the early balloting was drawing his votes mainly from the relatively small Social Democratic Party. He is trying to become the first President to serve two terms since the present Italian constitution was adopted in 1947.

Civil Turbulence. The opening ballots reflected the larger political crosscurrents sweeping Italy. The country has been swept by labor unrest for the past three years and is currently undergoing its sharpest recession since World War 11, with a consequent rise in unemployment to 5%. The resulting strikes and civil turbulence have aided an upsurge of the neo-Fascist Movimento Sociale Italiano, which won a worrisome 13.9% of the votes on a "law and order" platform in local elections in central/southern Italy last June. (The Communists won 21.1%, compared with 26.9% in the 1968 general election.) On top of all that, Italy's year-old law authorizing divorce has brought another split; the anti-divorce forces, led by the neoFascists, have garnered more than enough signatures to force a referendum on repeal, likely to be held next spring. Polls show that they might well win.

The Christian Democrats and Communists both want to avert such a referendum. They fear that it would seriously divide the country into clerical and secular camps. The Communists, who strongly backed the divorce law in the first place, also worry that many of their voters might desert them on the issue.

The Communists are in a position to swing the election of the president, with their 259 disciplined electoral votes. They are pledged to support De Martino, but not necessarily to the bitter end. Both Fanfani and his bitter rival Moro have sent emissaries to their headquarters on the Via delle Botteghe Oscure (Street of Dark Shops) in Rome's fashionable shopping district.

Damned Dwarf. When the electors filed past the dark green wicker urn in the Chamber of Deputies in the courtyard of the Bernini-designed Montecitorio Palace last week, the extent of the various splits became all too clear. After four ballots the Christian Democrats, divided into at least nine cor-renti (currents, or factions), gave only 349 of their 423 votes to Fanfani; with the support of lesser parties, he gained a total of 377 votes. De Martino, with the Communists supporting him, won 411 votes. Saragat was third with 50.

Fanfani was the victim of the snipers, which was fair enough, since in 1964 he led party dissidents to oppose and defeat his party's candidate, Giovanni Leone. Now one dissident scrawled across his ballot: "Damned dwarf, you'll never be elected." For the time being, the front runners could take only cold comfort from an old Italian saying about papal conclaves: "He who goes in a Pope comes out a cardinal."

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