<p>Italian voters reject the corrupt, long-entrenched centrists
and turn to extremists of the right and left
</p>
<p>By Marguerite Michaels--Reported by John Moody/Rome
</p>
<p> The rumors of Federico Fellini's death must have been exaggerated.
Surely the wildly contradictory results of last week's municipal
elections were the surreal creation of Italy's most imaginative
film director. Disgusted with 40 years of corrupt governments
dominated by centrist parties, voters opted for the extremes--recycled communists, neofascists, northern separatists--signaling the end of one era while giving no clue to the direction
of the new one. The defeat of the mainstream parties seems likely
to be repeated when Italians elect a new national Parliament
next year. Wrote Eugenio Scalfari, editor of the Rome daily
La Repubblica: "A chasm opened, and everything that for 40 years
had stood for the center fell into it."
</p>
<p> The voter rebellion has been simmering for a long time. Decades
of misrule have brought the institutions of government to a
state of collapse. In the past 20 months more than 3,000 politicians
and businessmen have been implicated in an ever expanding web
of billion-dollar kickback and bribery scandals. High taxes,
unemployment over 10% and an influx of immigrants have finally
driven the normally sanguine Italians into a rage.
</p>
<p> In last week's races for mayors and city-council members, the
cozy power-sharing coalition anchored by Christian Democrats
and Socialists that had held power since the end of World War
II fell to ignominious defeat: its candidates won only 14% of
the vote countrywide. In search of a party with a stronger message,
or perhaps just in revenge for the havoc politicians have wrought
on the country, Italians registered their protest by turning
to both the far left and the far right. The Northern League,
an upstart populist movement centered in Milan, continued to
gain power. It has threatened nothing less than the partition
of the country into autonomous federations, dividing the wealthy
north from the poor south. The Democratic Party of the Left,
formerly the Italian Communist Party, continues to insist that
it represents the workers and the poor, but now without Marxist
dogma. The neofascists of the Italian Social Movement played
to widespread anxiety about public order. But despite their
claims of moderation, they are plagued by a fringe of noisy
skinheads, racists and thugs who remind Italians of the disastrous
Fascism of World War II.
</p>
<p> The voting was so schizophrenic that runoffs will take place
next week in many of the major races, often between polar opposites.
Only one candidate won outright. Sicilians elected charismatic
Leoluca Orlando, 46, mayor of Palermo, on his promise to drive
the Mafia out of Italy.
</p>
<p> Romans split between the Democratic Party of the Left, which
backed Francesco Rutelli, 39, a Green candidate who ran on an
environmentalist platform promising to bring pedestrian zones
and pollution controls to the decaying capital, and the baby-faced
leader of the neofascist Italian Social Movement, Gianfranco
Fini, 41. He contended his party best responds to public demands
for law and order, immigration controls and restoration of the
death penalty. The top two vote getters in Naples, the city
that has come to symbolize southern Italy's chronic poverty
and lawlessness, were Antonio Bassolino, a 46-year-old veteran
communist who had the backing of the leftists and the Greens,
and the neofascist party's Alessandra Mussolini, 30, granddaughter
of dictator Benito Mussolini and niece of Sophia Loren. In Genoa
and Venice the leftists surprisingly forced runoffs against
the Northern League, suggesting there may be a geographic limit
to the separatists' appeal.
</p>
<p> Only a quarter of the nation's electorate voted in the municipal
balloting, but the dismal showing of the ruling parties may
force President Oscar Luigi Scalfaro to call for new parliamentary
elections, possibly as early as next February. Last week's winners
were already beginning to reposition themselves as new coalition
builders attractive to the mainstream. Said the Northern League's
secretary, Umberto Bossi: "A center party does exist in Italy,
and it's called the League." Countered Achille Occhetto, leader
of the Democratic Party of the Left: "We are a great alliance
of progressive forces that can confront the League and offer
a democratic alternative to the Christian Democrats."
</p>
<p> Few people believe Italy is headed for anything but a prolonged
period of instability. Since the center did not hold, political
scientist Giovanni Sartori figures the next Parliament will
prove that the country has become "absolutely ungovernable."
Italians can expect more wild swings before the political pendulum
