Italy’s Government: No. 50 and Counting : Politics: Prime Minister Andreotti forms a new Cabinet to replace the last one he headed.

It was “ deja vu all over again” for Italy on Friday: Wily political veteran Giulio Andreotti formed a new government to replace the last one he headed.

Nostalgic Italian expatriates and readers of fine print will recall that Italy’s 49th postwar government, the sixth with Andreotti as prime minister, collapsed two weeks ago after a squabble among the five coalition partners.

There followed prolonged and acrimonious deliberation among the center-left parties to resolve what politicians called a “crisis” and their countrymen steadfastly ignored.

On Friday evening, Andreotti journeyed to the Quirinale Palace in downtown Rome to report success to President Francesco Cossiga: He had forged agreement for a new Cabinet.

The government that Italians are already calling Giulio VII will feature the same five parties led by Andreotti’s Christian Democrats and including Socialists, Liberals, Republicans and Social Democrats.

The key ministers, including those of defense, interior and foreign affairs, are unchanged. Seven new Christian Democrats hold lesser ministerial posts.

What is new is a five-party pledge to focus official energies on combatting longstanding and knotty national problems that include government spending and a soaring budget deficit and the disturbing increase in organized crime and criminal violence.

In an effort to check a fractious Parliament that includes more than a dozen parties and movements, Andreotti’s spokesman said, the coalition partners agreed on procedural reform that would require Parliament to either accept or reject financial bills. The idea is to short-circuit an endless and disruptive partisan wrangling over amendments that has so often led to governmental downfall in the past.

The current constitution, enacted after the fall of fascism, guarantees proportional representation, assuring a myriad of parties in Parliament, and calculatingly subordinates the executive branch of government to the legislature. The Italian presidency is a largely ceremonial post at present.

In forming the Italian Republic’s 50th government, coalition partners agreed to at least momentarily sidetrack Socialist calls for constitutional reform to create a French-style presidential system.

Instead, amid a swelling call for institutional reform that would enable Italy to keep pace with its partners in the new Europe, the vexing question of how to amend the current constitution will be left for consideration by the next Parliament.

One key goal of the new government will be to maintain the coalition with Andreotti as its head until scheduled national elections in April, 1992. If Giulio VII actually survives that long, the coalition will have become the first since World War II to serve a full five-year electoral mandate without early elections.