ABSTRACT: The texts that follow reconstruct the story of Pannella's resignation from Parliament; the serious problems Pannella raised with it together with the thick and dirty veil covering Parliament. This is what the former member of Parliament wrote to his colleagues, what he said in Parliament, the replies given to him and to the problems he raised; with the "unexpected" result of the acceptance of his resignation. Also, the comments on the event: in the "Transatlantico" (1), in the press, on state television.

Quoted here below are the results of the vote and a comment by Marco Pannella.

(Radical News n.248 of 14 November 1989)

PRESENT ............................. 384

VOTING .............................. 382

ABSTAINED ........................... 2

IN FAVOUR OF RESIGNATION ............ 222

REJECT THEM ......................... 160

An evaluation of the votes enables us to reach the following conclusions:

The Christian Democrat Party was present with 160 members of parliament; we shall assume that only 25% of them, that is, 40, rejected my resignation...the Communist Party was present with 126 members of parliament, the Independent Left with 13, the Socialists with 38; we'll assume that 30 of them voted for my resignation...Proletarian Democracy, Greens, European federalists were present with 18 members of Parliament; we shall assume that 4 of them voted in favour...Liberal Party, Republican Party, Social-Democrat Party were 10; we shall assume that 4 of them did not reject my resignation; the Social Movement has 13 members of parliament, we'll assume that 5 of them voted in favour...MISCELLANEOUS were 5 (2 Green Arcobaleno!), unlike what had been announced. If we read the figures this way, we would get a total of 165 votes out of 222. 57 are missing: 41%, that must necessarily belong to the 139 members of the Socialist Party: 50% therefore. To be intellectually honest, this is what I have to assume mathemati

cally. But to be completely honest, I must say that I have several certainties, and even more serious ones. It is impossible that in an official group vote, expressed with a statement by member of Parliament Scalfaro on behalf of the head of the group Scotti, there were less than 60 members of parliament to follow them and 100 to betray them (to remain well below the probable reality). Similarly, I cannot believe that in the groups of Proletarian Democracy, Greens, Arcobaleno, 4 members of parliament voted with Silvano Labriola. It is my personal belief that in the socialist group there have been no more than 29 (to say the most) members of parliament to follow Piro, Labriola and Sanguineti. It is therefore extremely likely that a strong majority of the members of the Communist Party massively contributed to this astonishing result, astonishing even for the members of the CAF intergroup (2), who could not possibly imagine that they were representing, them alone, 60% of the Parliament.

Conclusions: I have been "kicked out" by the majority of the Christian Democrats, the Socialists and the Communists. There is no fraud in this, except in the Socialist Party, and not on the part of the presidency of the Socialist Group, or of the leading groups of the Communist and Christian Democrat members of parliament. The Communist Party as such and its secretariat have no responsibilities. But this proves the increasing degree of sloppiness and confusion of this party.

Translator's notes

(1) "Transatlantico": name given to the long corridor in front of the Hall of the Chamber of Deputies, where members of parliament meet and discuss informally.

(2) "CAF": Name given to a pact believed to exist between Craxi, Andreotti and Forlani for the maintenance and division of power.