Craxi, Benedetto

(b. Milan, 24 Feb. 1934; d. 19 Jan. 2000) Italian; leader of the Italian Socialist Party (PSI) 1976 – 93, Prime Minister 1983 – 7 Son of a local government official, Craxi moved straight into local politics and journalism after leaving secondary school. From the outset, he demonstrated a capacity for hard bargaining and a belief in the importance of effective management. As a member of the faction supporting the old party leader Pietro Nenni, he was regarded as a centrist within the Socialist Party. After early success in local government, in 1968 he was elected to the Chamber of Deputies in the Milan constituency, and in 1969 became deputy party secretary. In this post he showed little interest in the national party organization, but concentrated on building his position within the Milan organization of the PSI and with establishing his reputation within the Socialist International.

In 1976, after the poor Socialist results in the elections of that year, he became party secretary, in which position he was seen as a compromise candidate between the right and left of the party, subordinate to both. However, he rapidly reformed the party's local organization, imposing on the local associations the principle of self-financing, and putting his own supporters into the key positions of regional organizers. By the time of the party congress of 1981 his leadership of the party was unchallenged. He successfully distanced the PSI from its traditional ideological subservience to the much larger Italian Communist Party, led at this time by Enrico Berlinguer. Craxi used the party's limited resources to promote the party's pivotal role in government coalitions.

In 1983, following relatively successful elections in which the PSI won 14 per cent of the vote, he became the party's first ever Prime Minister. His government stayed in office until June 1986, the longest continuous period of any post-war government, and he was reappointed for a second term until January 1987. While Prime Minister, Craxi negotiated major reforms of the wage-indexation system and introduced a substantial new regime for the Prime Minister's office. His government was also responsible for radical reforms of the tax and pensions systems.

After the 1987 elections, Craxi had to cede the prime ministership, but he continued to exercise a major influence over Italian coalition politics. From March 1992 on, he and many elected members of his party were major targets of the investigating magistrates' drive against corruption. In March 1993 he was eventually compelled to resign the party secretaryship. He fled to Tunisia where in deteriorating health he resisted attempts at extradition on corruption charges. Faced by increasing popular resentment, he continued to insist that the charges against him and his colleagues were a Communist-led drive to belittle his methods and to exaggerate the extent of corruption.

Bettino Craxi exercised a profound influence on Italian politics from the late 1970s on. Unfettered by traditional socialist ideology, he was willing to consider radical change in a variety of policy areas and to introduce new methods of party management. He exploited his reputation as a combative political manager, and flaunted a lifestyle which he argued reflected the high-spending aspirations of many Italians. His achievements in office as Prime Minister are obscured by the dramatic character of his decline.