Italian election stolen by communists?

Giorgio Napolitano, usually described as a "former communist," was elected by the Italian parliament on May 10 to serve as Italy's president, the first communist to win the largely ceremonial post. The first and most important act that he performed as head of state was to invite Romano Prodi to form a government. Under Italy's parliamentarian system, a prime minister-elect cannot govern until the president asks him to do so.

Prodi claimed victory in the April election for prime minister, with the narrowest margin in Italy's postwar history. However, the election was marred by "irregularities," including ballot boxes containing thousands of uncounted ballots found in Rome after the vote count. Incumbent prime minister Silvio Berlusconi has refused to concede defeat and is awaiting the results of an official investigation, even though he has turned over the office to Prodi. On May 22, Prodi was given final approval by the Italian parliament.

The elections of Napolitano and Prodi are especially striking, in light of recent revelations about Soviet penetration of Italy's government. In March, a parliamentary commission headed by Senator Paolo Guzzanti directly accused the Soviet Union of planning and directing the 1981 assassination attempt of Pope John Paul II in St. Peter's Square. The commission concluded "beyond any reasonable doubt, that the leaders of the Soviet Union took the initiative to eliminate the pope, Karol Wojtyla."

The 81-year-old Giorgio Napolitano was for decades a top leader of the Italian Communist Party and a close comrade of Antonio Gramsci, the top theoretician on communist cultural warfare. Napolitano staunchly stood by the Soviet Union, even defending the communist invasions of Hungary and Czechoslovakia. Nevertheless, he has served as president of the Chamber of Deputies, Minister of the Interior, and Member of the European Parliament.

Mr. Prodi does not have Napolitano's communist party pedigree, but he has come under charges of being an asset of the Soviet KGB, by Soviet defector Alexander Litvinenko. In an April 3 speech before the European Parliament in Strasbourg, Parliament member Gerard Batten noted that when Litvinenko decided to defect from the Russian FSB (successor to the KGB) he asked an old friend, FSB General Anatoly Trofimov, for advice on a place of refuge. Trofimov reportedly told Litvinenko, "Don't go to Italy, there are many KGB agents among the politicians: Romano Prodi is our man there."