De Mita Starts Effort Today to Form a Cabinet in Rome

Ciriaco De Mita, the son of a country tailor, will begin trying today to find a way to restore credible government to a country whose economic achievements are jeopardized by its politics.

A balding politician more at home in the back room than in the limelight, the 60-year-old De Mita is making his debut as a potential prime minister after the fourth collapse of government in a year.

In talks opening this morning with center-left political leaders, De Mita will attempt to form the 48th postwar Italian government by re-creating outgoing Prime Minister Giovanni Goria’s five-party coalition.

De Mita, leader of the dominant Christian Democrats for the last six years, is pledging control of the public debt, improved public services, clean government and reform of obsolete elements of the parliamentary system. All are necessary, he says, if there is to be political stability and effective government.

“It’s up to the political forces to understand and eradicate the reasons for this public alienation,” De Mita said Wednesday on accepting an invitation from President Francesco Cossiga to form a government.

Since the Christian Democrats will not consider sharing power with the Communists, Italy’s second-largest party, De Mita’s talks with former Prime Minister Bettino Craxi, the Socialist Party leader, will be critical to his chances.

Socialists and Social Democrats withdrew from the Goria coalition after the government ordered construction resumed on a nuclear power station. Craxi said the move violated the results of a 1987 referendum against nuclear power.

Craxi, a longtime political ally but personal rival of De Mita’s, has been pushing for institutional reforms that the Christian Democrats now say they also favor.

Most pressing would be legislative overhaul that would permit a meaningful approach to a budget deficit that reached 12% last year.

There is widespread fear that this year’s even larger deficit will trigger inflation and undermine Europe’s fastest economic growth. As a result of growth in the past decade, Italy now rivals Britain and France in per capita income.

A key legislative change would eliminate the secret vote in the Italian Parliament. Adopted as a protection for democracy after the fall of fascism, the secret vote was used repeatedly by maverick Christian Democrats seeking to embarrass Goria and protect local interests during a prolonged and anguished 1988 budget debate.