ITALY: Hymn of Praise

Italy last week went into Round Two of its electoral contest (TIME, June11). The scene: poverty-stricken Sicily, which was electing a 90-member legislative assembly. There Reds scored even bigger gains in popular vote than in the municipal elections in Northern Italy two weeks before. The Communists, who rolled up a vote of 464,000 in 1948, gained 180,000. The Demo-Christians lost nearly 400,000. Because of Italy’s new electoral law, which provides that any party with a plurality in a district automatically gets two-thirds of the seats for that district, the Demo-Christians managed to gain ten new seats. The new line-up in Sicily’s Parliament:

Demo-Christians 30 seats, Communists 30, Neo-Fascist M.S.I. 12 (the Neo-Fascists had no seats in the last Parliament), Monarchists 9, minor parties 9.

One alarmingf factor: M.S.I.’s fast growth. In order to form a government in Sicily, the Demo-Christians will probably have to deal with the Monarchists and the Neo-Fascists, much as they dislike the prospect.

Crowed Red Boss Palmiro Togliatti: “We have rallied around our banner 42% of voters in big Italian cities and 31% in Sicily . . . From our souls rises a hymn of praise.”