Nation’s 47th Postwar Cabinet : Italy’s Goria Forms New Government, Ends Crisis

The man who will be the youngest prime minister in recent Italian history formally presented the country’s 47th postwar government to President Francesco Cossiga on Tuesday, ending a five-month political crisis.

Giovanni Goria, a Christian Democrat and longtime treasury minister, formed the new government from the same five-party coalition of Christian Democrats, Socialists, Republicans, Social Democrats and Liberals that ruled for 3 1/2 years under former Prime Minister Bettino Craxi, a Socialist.

Cossiga will swear in the new Cabinet today, and Goria is expected to easily win a confidence vote when he presents the new government to both houses of Parliament on Thursday, his 44th birthday.

Although well-known as the bearded and handsome treasury minister in four governments during the last 4 1/2 years, Goria was a surprise choice for the top job because he is relatively untried in the rough-and-tumble politics of the Christian Democrats, whose aging leaders have dominated Italian governments since 1947.

Soft-spoken and often self-effacing, Goria has described himself as an accountant who became a politician, and he is widely viewed as more of a technocrat than as a potential political leader.

Commentators said that his selection by Cossiga was a compromise, fulfilling the need for a relatively non-controversial figure to end a deadlock between Craxi and the leader of the Christian Democrat party, Ciriaco de Mita.

Feuding over power-sharing between then-Prime Minister Craxi and De Mita brought down the Craxi government in March. Craxi bitterly refused after that to align his Socialist Party behind any coalition led by De Mita.

No Youth Wave

However, there are enough older politicians from the Christian Democratic and other coalition parties in the new government to erase any prospects of a new wave of youth taking power. Commentators view Goria’s hold on the leadership as weak and probably short-lived.

For example, Giulio Andreotti, 68, five times prime minister, who is considered the craftiest of Italy’s master politicians, will remain foreign minister, the post he has held since Craxi took power in 1983.

Amintore Fanfani, 79, who was prime minister six times, including his caretaker role during the current crisis, will serve as interior minister.

Craxi, 53, who resumed his old post as leader of the Socialists, will not serve in the government. However, one of his party subordinates, Giuliano Amato, will be deputy prime minister and treasury minister, both key posts.

The Craxi-De Mita feud paralyzed Italian politics until Cossiga called general elections in June that saw both Socialists and Christian Democrats making gains at the cost of a sharp decline in votes for the largest Communist party in the West.

After the election, in which the Christian Democrats won 34.3% and the Socialists 14.3% of the vote, De Mita sought the prime minister’s post but was blocked by Craxi, who refused to join a coalition led by his enemy. Both parties agreed to Goria as a compromise.

However the alliance is a delicate one, hinging on issues that remain unresolved since Craxi’s government collapsed.

The principle issue is nuclear power. Under Craxi, public referenda, which were to have been held in June, probably would have had the effect of killing future nuclear power plants and dismantling the few already in operation. The referenda were postponed by the political crisis, but they are to be rescheduled in the fall.

In order to temporarily shelve the issue, the coalition partners in the new Goria government have agreed to a moratorium on constructing nuclear power plants, pending the referenda.