Elections Red Check

Italy's powerful Communist Party went into last week's local and regional elections in a buoyant mood. After all, in last year's balloting for Italian candidates for the European Parliament, the Communists had outpolled the country's largest party, the Christian Democrats, by 34.5% to 33%. It was the first time the Italian Communists had come in first in a nationwide vote. Before last week's elections, however, Socialist Prime Minister Benedetto ("Bettino") Craxi, who heads the five-party governing coalition, threatened to resign if the Communists again emerged as the leading party. The outcome was in doubt until the end because no forecasts were permitted until all polling booths had closed. In the end, the Communists' mood was changed from hope to deep gloom.

Craxi's coalition won a decisive vote of confidence, with a total of more than 58%. The biggest winner was the Christian Democratic Party, which bested the Communists, 35% to 30.2%. What may have worked in the Christian Democrats' favor was a heavy turnout of 44.5 million, or 89% of eligible voters. Had the Communists repeated their earlier sorpasso, or overtaking, of the Christian Democrats, they could have pushed the Craxi coalition to the brink of collapse and possibly positioned themselves for an even more critical defeat of the government by calling for early parliamentary elections, which are not due to be held until 1988.

Instead, the Communists now return to their role as the second-largest party in the country -- and the largest Communist Party in the West -- but still the outsider in Italian politics. The Christian Democrats have reasserted some of their lost authority; in Rome, for example, they and their coalition partners took control of the city council after ten years of Communist leadership. As a result, Christian Democratic leaders are showing signs of restlessness at being the country's largest party but only a junior member of the government coalition. Analysts in Italy were asking last week if the Christian Democrats would now challenge Socialist Craxi for the Prime Minister's post or if they would seek the presidency, held by Socialist Sandro Pertini, whose term ends next month.

Many political commentators viewed the results as a national retreat from the left. Perhaps the most significant reason for the Communists' defeat was the loss of the effetto Berlinguer, the sympathy vote for charismatic Communist Party Leader Enrico Berlinguer, who died shortly before the 1984 European Parliament elections. Today the party is led by Ales- sandro Natta, a colorless political veteran. Commentators surmised that the effetto Natta had hurt the party as much as the effetto Berlinguer had previously helped it.