gee i ta a ane — - — ——— _ Pro-Wes today 9 Major: . alority in the Italian Senate. Popy Position, 'N the. 1948 polls. Western Parlj in 8ssure control. &rnm 4 chamb Necessary soon. 000 chamber's seats, How dailies distorted ltalian election result ROME, Italy, June 9—(BUP)—Préthier Alcide De Gasperi’s tern alliance of Italian centre parties appeared assured Of a new five-year lease on life. His coalition already had safely tucked away a 52.4 percent : Needed only to rack up more than 50 percent of the oie ar vote for the more influential Chamber of Deputies to Seen of 64 percent of the seats in that body. the Eo Italy’s powerful Communist party was a factor in ists Sons it Was a combination of ultra-right wing Monarch- : Neo-fascists that principally threatened De Gasperi’s The extreme left appeared to be doing little better than cos ~ & ROME, June 10—(BUP)—Premier Alcide de Gasperi’s pro- coalition government failed to win decisive control of ament in this week’s elections, it was announced today. 5 ie returns in the photo-finish race for domination of ing amber of Deputies showed that the four parties support- © Gasperi fell short of the clear popular majority needed he plurality its supporters did receive will give the gov- Cnt a hairline majority of eight votes in the 590-member €r—such a shaky margin that new elections probably will ed ae official announcement said the government parties lack- “simp! Votes — in a total of more than 25,000,000 — for the © majority which would have given them 64 percent of the es British policy in Africa exposed by ban on Kenya union Britj eins the ti Kenya African Union. Th Posen enV African Union was cod as unlawful under the the . €, its property seized by *Sociation nent and any political The N of Africans forbidden. Clateg Kenya government,” de- W dley tef Native Commissioner Such .°? Can never again allow Afrion @880ciation as the Kenya 20 Union y Ore 2» Pnent. gor? he added, “the gov- : : nnot Permit the form- my ° hy African political so- ~ Shy, the same lines as the 'S stil, 5 Tican Union, while there ty» SUch trouble in this coun- The td b enya African Union was sett arre © Kenyatta until his re- meted a and conviction on "Mbershi> charges, and had a ety ¢ : my is a and to seize all its prop- Ntish °O™Mplete self-exposure of hye, Sovernment policy in a relareg one they have solemnly tt ®tations lat military and police ot the sup Kenya are restricted Of te Pression of the minority "eq by thes Se to be organ- “Nt i ‘ U au. en ae for the labor move- Ble, ‘ all decent-minded peo- ees a rest against the in- he Af: ‘'tish suppression of "leans in Kenya.” : LONDON authorities in Kenya marked a new ‘stage in the terror € African peoples last week by banning their only organiza- The ban was announced after a - mpavened meeting of the governor’s executive council Launch new West German peace party By WALTER HOLMES BONN A new party has been. formed to fight the forthcoming general election for the Bonn parliament on a program of peace and pro- gress in a united Germany. Dr. ‘Wirth, the former Reichs Chancellor, announced launching of the new party following a clos- ed conference, held in Cologne, attended by some 300 delegates from all parts of Western Ger- many. The new party is named the League of Germans and, said Dr. Wirth, its program can be sum- med up in the words, “Unity, Peace, Freedom.” ‘ Its foundations lie in the move- ment began a year ago when Dr. Wirth, foremost among other pro- gressively minded public person- ages, declared himself against the Bonn Treaty, and for uniting of Germany under a government de- mocratically elected, following a Four-Power conference. These aims remain foremost, as- sociated with a plan of social measures, in the party program. Wen dead walked in Rome a ® vote for.De The ‘ ROME pethiegVernment bloc, led by fr Nocrats © Gasperi’s Christian tan! : A resorted to wholesale Jan rahe effort to carry the aneleetorai election last week. Hes Of deaqrertiticates of thous- st Ch ies People were used by Po ore = Democrats for their Wen Monks Vote twice or more. tig g Prom; and Catholic priests hs, Ment in these viola- Gasperi In addition to dead people’s cer- tificates, the ‘government parties used duplicate certificates and is- sued them to priests and nuns. Thus at Varese many nuns voted | twice. The same happened at Imperia and in Florence, while truck loads of nuns were driven from Leghorn to nearby towns to register a second vote. In Catania 150 nuns who had voted were transferred to Messina so that they could vote again. And the real story De Gasperi’s electoral fraud toiled as Left wins 10 million votes ROME . Over ten million votes were cast for the Italian Communist and Socialist parties and left-wing Independents in the elections here, providing the most resounding victory for Italy's peace forces since the end of the war. The vote was a crushing defeat for the government bloc led by Premier De Gasperi’s Christian Democrats who had staked their whole campaign on getting 50 percent plus one of the votes. This would have entitled them to claim two-thirds of the seats in the Italian Cham- ber of Deputies under an electoral law forced through by the govern- ment just before the dissolution of parliament. But Premier De Gasperi and his bloe fell 57,000 votes short of ob- taining the 50 percent and their total vote fell from 16,228,274 in 1948 to 13,487,038. In the new House the Com- munists will have 143 seats, a gain of 11, and the Socialists 75 seats, a gain of 21, out of a total of 570 seats. This is 32 seats more than their combined total before the election when as a result of their 8 million votes gained in 1948, the Com- munists, Socialists and left- wing Independents shared 176 seats between them. De Gasperi hoped by his trick election law to reduce the Com- munist and Nenni Socialist MP’s to no more than 100 seats, but, with the left wing independents, they will now have 218 seats, a heavy blow to the government. The left wing vote increased from 8,137,047 in 1948 to 10,080 002 of which the Communist party polled 6,122,638, the Italian Social- ist party led by Pietro Nenni, 3,- 440,222, and the Left Independents 517,142. The Communists and Social- ists polled 34.7 percent of the votes and between them have 86 seats in the new Senate, com- pared with 73 in the previous _ Senate. Celebrations were held in cities and towns throughout the country when election returns showed the extent of the left wing victory. In Rome, where the government coalition suffered especially heavy losses, Palmiro Togliatti, Com- munist party general secretary, was cheered in the streets as his car was ‘being driven from Com- munist party headquarters to the officers of Unita, Communist daily paper. ; There huge crowds of workers had gathered from early morning to get the official election results. In a message to the Italian people, Togliatti declared that from the figures: “Tt is obvious and clear that the Communist party has obtained a victory, a great victory, a victory which is bigger than anybody could have foreseen. “After five years in which the Italian people have been ruled by a reactionary party and by a gov- ernment that had clearly stated that its principle aim was to de- stroy the Communist party; “After five years during which the official doctrine of all author- ities has been anti-Communist, we appéar again on fhe political field as the largest, strongest and most militant of the Italian democratic parties. \ “The most honest and healthy sections of our people have gath- ered in a great majority around us and have given us their votes. “Our victory has been obtained in the name of peace, democracy and socialism, and all good Italians have, therefore, every reason to rejoice in the result.” PALMIRO TOGLIATTI Tl more Communist: seats PIETRO NENNI 21 more Socialist seats ALCIDE DE GASPERI 68 less government seats Out of the total of over 13 mil- lion cast for the government co- alition, the Christian Democrats— the main party in the American bloc of parties—gained 10,859,554 votes, compared with 12,712,562 in 1948. — The right-wing Democratic So- cialist party led by Guiseppe Sara- gat lost 600,000 votes—50 percent of its former total. vote—and, re- ducing its representation in the new Chamber to a mere handful. The Monarchists polled 1,856,- 661 votes and the fascist M.S.L party 1,580,395. Efforts are being made to chal- lenge the people’s decision. A Ministry of the Interior spokesman announced that 1,300,000 voting papers had been challenged and will be examined by a special com- mission of the new Chamber of Deputies. The government intends ‘to use its position to get enough of these challenged votes to en- able it to claim that it has won more than 50 percent of the total votes and is entitled to two- thirds of the seats in the Cham- ber. The government bloc represen- tation drops from 371, to 303 seats of which the Christian Democrats get 262, the Social Democrats 19, the Liberals 14 and the Republi- cans five. The Monarchists have increased their seats from 14 to 40 and the fascists from six to 29. In the Senate elections, where the lower age limit for voting is 25 compared with 21 for the Cham- ber, the De Gasperi bloc got 50.2 percent of the votes and 125 out of the 237 seats. All political observers in Rome are agreed that the Communist party under Togliatti’s leadership has gained an exceptional victory. At the same time they note that, the extreme Right has not shown any considerable improve- ment over the 1951 municipal elec- tions. The neo-fascist MSI party, has lost votes in many areas including the capital where it claimed to be “very strong.” “This mighty victory of the pop- ular parties,” writes the left wing newspaper, Paese Sera, “together with the fact that the right wing parties got far inferior results than they expected, and the. ab- solute shattering of the govern- ment satellite parties, is a situa- tion which the government can- not ignore. “The people’s, will and ten- dencies are now clear and any future government will have to take them ‘into account, and the whole Italian policy will have to be based on this fact.” When the Left opposed the fraudulent electoral law which would have given the American parties an inflated majority, the government said the election would be a referendum on whether the people wanted’ this law or not. The paper concludes: “Now the referendum has been held. The government has been de- feated. The people are waiting for the correct conclusions to be drawn from the government’s defeat.” Finally, it should be noted that the vote is a condemnation of the whole policy of hatred and of war carried out by De Gasperi within the Atlantic War Pact alliance. PACIFIC TRIBUNE — JUNE 19, 1953 — PAGE 3