Pentapartito

Giulio Andreotti

The Pentapartito began in 1981 at a meeting of the Congress of the Italian Socialist Party (PSI) when the Christian Democrat Arnaldo Forlani and Socialist Secretary Bettino Craxi signed an agreement with the "blessing" of Giulio Andreotti. As the agreement was signed in a trailer, it was called the "pact of the camper." The pact was also called "CAF" for the initials of the signers, Craxi-Andreotti-Forlani. With this agreement, the DC party recognized the equal dignity of the so-called "secular parties" of the majority (i.e., the Socialists, Social Democrats, Liberals and Republicans) and also guaranteed an alternation of government (in fact, Giovanni Spadolini of the PRI and Bettino Craxi of the PSI became the first non-Christian Democrats to hold the premiership). With the birth of the Pentapartito, the possibility of the growth of the majority toward the Italian Communist Party (PCI) was finally dismissed. The Christian Democrats remained the leaders of the coalition, and managed several times to prevent representatives of the secular parties from becoming Prime Minister (Ciriaco De Mita was opposed, for example, by a continuous veto against Craxi).

Other sources, however, claim that the "pact of the camper" was only stipulated between Craxi, Forlani and Andreotti in 1989, in a parking lot of Ansaldo in Milan, where the Congress of the Italian Socialist Party took place. The pact would have provided a path that would have started with the fall of the De Mita's government and the formation of a cabinet with a social democrat-led transition, culminating in another Craxi's government, when it would release the armchair del Quirinale where the investiture is scheduled or of Andreotti and Forlani. Eugenio Scalfari in July 1989 will define "an agreement of a regime."

Bettino Craxi

The coalition ended in 1991 when the PRI withdrew its support from the coalition over its failure to be given the Ministry of Communications.[3] On 29 March 1991, the 5-party Andreotti VI cabinet was replaced with the 4-party (quadripartito) Andreotti VII cabinet (lasting until 24 April 1992). This ruling coalition belongs to the twilight period of the so-called first Republic in Italy, the season ended with the mani pulite investigation conducted by the Prosecutor's Office in Milan, involving numerous politicians and almost all the national leaders of the parties that made up the pentapartito: Giulio Andreotti (DC), Arnaldo Forlani (DC), Ciriaco De Mita (DC), Paolo Cirino Pomicino (DC), Bettino Craxi (PSI), Renato Altissimo (PLI), Francesco De Lorenzo (PLI), Giorgio La Malfa (PRI) and many others, with the notable exception of Giovanni Spadolini, which never had charges against him.

This phase of Italian democracy is known as Tangentopoli. After the 1992 election, the quadripartito remained in power under the Amato Cabinet, although Prime Minister Giuliano Amato resigned on 28 April 1993 and subsequently, President of the Republic Oscar Luigi Scalfaro appointed the Governor of the Bank of Italy Carlo Azeglio Ciampi, new Prime Minister with the mandate to deal with the serious economic crisis and rewrite the electoral law. An electoral law was passed in predominantly majority either way for the Chamber and the Senate. They returned to the polls in 1994 in order to locate the repositioning of the parties in the light of new electoral legislation (which was still applied only in 1996 and, for the last time, in 2001).

The unofficial successor of the Pentapartito was the Pact for Italy, the centrist coalition led of Mariotto Segni and Patto Segni, the Italian People's Party of Mino Martinazzoli, inheritors of the DC, the PRI of Giorgio La Malfa and the Liberal Democratic Union (Unione Liberaldemocratica) of Valerio Zanone.

In the 1994 Italian general election the PPI reached only 11.07%, the Segni Pact (with PRI and FdL, the successor of PLI) reached 4.68%, the PSI reached only 2.19% and the PSDI only reached 0.46%.