The Socialist Party, while it maintained its 1972 vote, slipped back from the advance it registered in the June 1975 regional elections after its initial 'left' turn. Its policy of half-measures and its inability to make a radical turn threw doubts on its declarations about a lent alternauve The election results could throw the party into crisis. The vice-secretary Mosca has already resigned, inviting the leadership of the party to do likewise.
COMMUNIST PARTY The big winner is once again the Communist Party. It increased its vote everywhere, both confirming its advance in the regions where it made new inroads on 15 June 1975, and making new gains where it made no significant impression last June.
In the South particularly it registered substantial gains this time round. In Aquila it advanced from 30.3 per cent (27 per cent in 1972) to 34.9 per cent; in Camobasse its vote increased Tron 17.9 per cent in 197 15(17.3 in 1972) to 26 per cent.
In the latter case, the Christian Democrat vote remained solid, and it seems that the CP won votes trom the Social Democrats and the neo-fascist MS1. The same phenomenon appeared even more clearly in Naples, where the CP vote went up by 10 per cent compared with 1972, while the MSI vote fell by 7 per cent over the same period.
This transfer of votes is not surprising For a whole period the demagogy of the Ms allowed it to win a certal populat base in the poverty-stricken South. But important workers' struggles in the recent period, such as that at Alasua.
have succeeded in drawing important sections of the sub-proletarial and unemployed towards the workers parties chiefly the CP. In all the cities of the South the CP's vote went up by 5-8 per PROLETARIAN DEMOCRACY The results for the far left (1.6 per cent) were well below those anticipated by the main constituent groups (Party of Proletarian Unity-PDUP, Avanguardia Operaia, Lotta Continua) and do not reflect the real impact of the campaign. It is clear that many people who said they agreed with Proletarian Democracy ended up voung lor me cr wis ume - especial: as the likelihood of a left majority appeared possible.
But the far left also paid for its slowness to take advantage of the political crisis in the last few years: it has succeeded in acquiring a certain weight in a whole series of sectors and struggles, but it doesn't appear yet as a credible political pole of attraction in the eyes of the masses.
In all, DP won 556,000 votes, enough to give it six deputies on a proportiona. basis. Its best results were obtained in the northern industrial triangle: 2.6 per cent and 80,000 votes in Milan; 1.9 per cent and 42,016 votes in Turin; 2.4 per cent in Brescia. In Naples, too, lt poled 1.6 per cent; while in the earthquake area of Udine it won 14,000 votes (1.8 per cent).
Leaving aside the results, all the different groups agree that the far left campaign and its central slogans met with a certain response in mportant sectors. With the present impasse at the level of government, it can be expected that the slogans of the far left will be taken up more broadly in the struggles to come.
Political clarification and consolidation therefore becomes an urgent task for the Italian revolutionaries in order to bulld and strenginen tre poutival alternative which has begun to appear in this election campaign.