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Ugo La Malfa | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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 La Malfa in the early 1960s | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Deputy Prime Minister of Italy | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| In office 21 March 1979 – 26 March 1979 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Prime Minister | Giulio Andreotti | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Preceded by | Himself | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Succeeded by | Arnaldo Forlani | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| In office 23 November 1974 – 12 February 1976 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Prime Minister | Aldo Moro | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Preceded by | Mario Tanassi | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Succeeded by | Himself | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Secretary of theItalian Republican Party | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| In office April 1965 – February 1975 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Preceded by | Oddo Biasini | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Succeeded by | Oddo Biasini | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Personal details | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Born | 16 May 1903 Palermo, Italy | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Died | 26 March 1979 (aged 75) Rome, Italy | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Political party | PdA (1942–1946) CDR (1946) PRI (1946–1979) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Children | Giorgio | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Residence(s) | Rome, Italy | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Alma mater | Ca' Foscari University of Venice | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Profession | Politics Journalist | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Ugo La Malfa (16 May 1903 – 26 March 1979) was anItalian politician and an important leader of theItalian Republican Party (Partito Repubblicano Italiano; PRI).
La Malfa was born inPalermo,Sicily. After completing his secondary schooling, he enrolled in theCa' Foscari University ofVenice in the Department of Diplomatic Sciences with professorsSilvio Trentin andGino Luzzatto.
During his years at the university, he had contacts within the republican movement ofTreviso and otheranti-fascist groups. In 1924, he moved toRome and participated in the foundation of the Goliardic Union for Freedom. On 14 June 1925, he participated in the first conference of the National Democratic Union, founded byGiovanni Amendola. The movement was later declared illegal underMussolini'sfascist government. In 1926, he graduated with a thesis dealing sharply withhuman rights. During his military service, he was transferred toSardinia to disrupt the anti-fascist publicationPietre, on which he worked. By 1928, he was among those arrested following the 12 April bombing in the Fiera diMilano for allegedly planning to assassinate Italian KingVictor Emmanuel III, only to be interrogated and released.
In 1929, he took a job editing theTreccani Encyclopaedia, working under the direction of the liberal philosopherUgo Spirito. At the request ofRaffaele Mattioli, he took a job with Mattioli's Italian Commercial Bank in 1933, of which he became director in 1938. During these years, he showed his expertise in both economics and leadership. There, he forged relations between anti-fascist groups to build a web that formed thePartito d'Azione, over which he presided as a founder. On 1 January 1943, La Malfa and the lawyerAdolfo Tino succeeded in publishing the first issue of their clandestine publication,L'Italia Libera. Later that year, La Malfa fled Italy to escape arrest, travelling to Switzerland, where he had contacts with a BritishSpecial Operations Executive representative. With these, he tried to organize a trip to London to use his influence at the Foreign Office. He tried to prevent the Allied invasion of Italy and to obtain a negotiated Italian retreat from the war.[1] Later, he returned to Rome to participate in theresistance movement with the Partito d'Azione and theComitato di Liberazione Nazionale.
In 1945, under the reconstruction government ofFerruccio Parri, La Malfa assumed the role of Minister of Transportation. In the following government, underAlcide De Gasperi, he was Minister of Reconstruction, a position later renamed Minister of International Commerce. In February 1946, the first conference of the Partito d'Azione was held, during whichEmilio Lussu prevailed in determining party philosophy, and La Malfa and Parri left the party. In March, he participated in the constitution of theRepublican Democratic Concentration, which supported the republican referendum in June and contested the related general election. La Malfa and Parri were elected to theConstituent Assembly of Italy, and with the encouragement ofRandolfo Pacciardi, they joined the Italian Republican Party, commonly known as the PRI.
He was designated to representItaly at theInternational Monetary Fund in 1947 and was named vice president the following year. Meanwhile, withGiulio Andrea Belloni andOronzo Reale, he assumed the temporary role ofparty secretary. Reelected to theparliament in 1948, and confirmed in the subsequent legislature, he held numerous positions, including as a "minister without portfolio" charged with reorganizing the Institute for Industrial Reconstruction (IRI), before he was appointed Minister of Foreign Trade in 1951. His work on liberalizing the Italian economy and lowering import tariffs was fundamental to the "economic miracle."
In 1952, he proposed, without success, a "constituent program" between the secular parties. In 1956, while maintaining the Republican Party's autonomy fromMarxist economic theories and its position on theleft of the political spectrum, he favoured the unification of the three majorsocialist schools to make the divide between his party and theirs more comprehensible.
After the Republicans withdrew support for the government in 1957, Randolfo Pacciardi left as party director. La Malfa assumed direction of the party's newspaper,La Voce Repubblicana, in 1959. In 1962, he was named Minister of the Budget in the first center-left government underAmintore Fanfani, following the socialist abstention. In May, he introduced theNota Aggiuntiva, in which he supplied a general vision of the state of the Italian economy, including the inequalities which characterized it, and delineated the instruments and objects of their regime. Though criticized for his plan by theConfindustria, the Italian employers' union, he decided to nationalize the electricity industry. On the occasion of the 29th conference of the Republican Party, in March 1965, he was elected party secretary. The following year, he opened a dialogue with the help of his old friendGiorgio Amendola, son ofGiovanni Amendola, between the republicans and communists, inviting them to leave behind their old orthodoxy and help develop a more pragmatic approach.
During the tumultuous 1970s, the Republican Party played a small but vital role in determining the government of Italy and maintaining continuity. Following the fall ofMariano Rumor's third government in 1970, La Malfa refused the invitation of incomingPrime MinisterEmilio Colombo to take the role of Minister of the Treasury. For him, the government was not able to delineate a strategic plan for financing reforms with their education, health, and transportation services, and Colombo only lasted one year on the job. La Malfa pulled his party out of the subsequentGiulio Andreotti government over the issue of state control ofcable television[1]. Asked again in 1973 by Mariano Rumor's fourth government, he accepted the Minister of the Treasury job. In that position, he blocked the request to grant increased emergency financing to Finambro, a bank owned byMichele Sindona, opening the door to the collapse of Sindona's banking empire and his eventual indictment. He resigned in February over fiscal policy disagreements with the Minister of the Budget, pulling the PRI's support for that government and causing its collapse. That December, he was named deputy Prime Minister in the fourth government of his friendAldo Moro, and in 1975, he assumed the presidency of the Republican Party withOddo Biasini replacing him as secretary.
The last years of his life were among his most productive. Upon defeating resistance from left-wing republicans in 1976, La Malfa brought the party into the pan-European federation, which later became theEuropean Liberal Democrat and Reform Party. In 1978, his action determined Italy's decision to join theEuropean Monetary System. Following the kidnapping and murder of Aldo Moro, La Malfa gave a tearful and memorable speech in theChamber of Deputies condemningterrorism and theRed Brigades. Though nominated byPresidentSandro Pertini as Prime Minister in early 1979, the first secular politician to reach this stage, he could not form a government and later became Deputy Prime Minister and then Minister of the Budget in Giulio Andreotti's second government.
On 24 March 1979, he suffered acerebral haemorrhage and died two days later in Rome.
For many, La Malfa was "the needle" that sewed the Italian republic together and kept it from coming undone, especially because of his role as a peacemaker between contrasting parties. He understood the futility and irresponsibility of governing without the communists, who held upwards of one-third of the seats in parliament. His economic principles, though they often appeared unrealistic and visionary, such as a common European monetary system, were revolutionary and helped make Italy second in economic growth only toWest Germany for many years. His commitment to infrastructure within theMezzogiorno has aided commerce for fifty years.
In Rome, Piazzale Romolo e Remo was renamed Piazzale Ugo La Malfa, and his hometown of Palermo was named Via Ugo La Malfa in his honour.
His sonGiorgio La Malfa is president of the PRI and was Minister for European Affairs in Italy until 2006.
| Election | House | Constituency | Party | Votes | Result | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1946 | Constituent Assembly | Italy at-large | PRI | –[a] |  YElected | |
| 1948 | Chamber of Deputies | Bologna–Ferrara–Ravenna–Forlì | PRI | 11,059 | YElected | |
| 1953 | Chamber of Deputies | Bologna–Ferrara–Ravenna–Forlì | PRI | 9,197 | YElected | |
| 1958 | Chamber of Deputies | Bologna–Ferrara–Ravenna–Forlì | PRI | 10,457 | YElected | |
| 1963 | Chamber of Deputies | Bologna–Ferrara–Ravenna–Forlì | PRI | 18,100 | YElected | |
| 1968 | Chamber of Deputies | Bologna–Ferrara–Ravenna–Forlì | PRI | 13,544 | YElected | |
| 1972 | Chamber of Deputies | Rome–Viterbo–Latina–Frosinone | PRI | 33,446 | YElected | |
| 1976 | Chamber of Deputies | Rome–Viterbo–Latina–Frosinone | PRI | 22,159 | YElected | |
Rumor IV Cabinet (1973–74) | ||
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Andreotti V Cabinet (March–August 1979) | ||
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