Italy: Massimo DAlema Is Sworn In As Prime Minister Of Italy's 56Th Government Since 1945

Record ID: 4035

  • Title: Italy: Massimo DAlema Is Sworn In As Prime Minister Of Italy's 56Th Government Since 1945
  • Date: 21st October 1998
  • Summary: Former communist Massimo D'Alema has been sworn in as prime minister of Italy's 56th government since 1945, heading a new centre-left administration which included the first Marxist ministers in 51 years. The ceremony which took place at the Presidential Palace in Rome on October 21 ended a three-week crisis which might have plunged Italy into an early election just as it prepares to join the European single currency. D'Alema, 49, was the first to swear allegiance to Italy's post-war constitution in the gilded Sala delle Feste at the Quirinale palace before President Oscar Luigi Scalfaro, who as supreme political arbiter shepherded the new government into existence. The ministerial line-up includes three ex-prime ministers, six women and a younger look to a cabinet that includes activists from the student movements of the 1960s. The new government is the more extraordinary for including ex-communists and Marxists alongside members of the UDR (Union of Democrats for the Republic), who once swore allegiance to the now-defunct Christian Democrats. D'Alema, who heads the Democrats of the Left, the biggest party in parliament, called a first meeting of his cabinet immediately after the swearing-in.
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  • Location: ITALY ROME ROMA
  • Reuters ID: LDL00129KBBR7
  • Aspect Ratio: 4:3
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  • Copyright Holder: Reuters Archive
  • Copyright Notice: (c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2014. Open For Restrictions - http://about.reuters.com/fulllegal.asp
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