The Big Scrub

NOT ONLY WAS CLAUDIO MARTELLI ITALY'S MINISter of Justice, he was also one of the last hopes as a leader who might restore respect to the Italian Socialist Party, badly weakened by an 18-month investigation of corruption and kickbacks known as Operation Clean Hands. That hope vanished when Martelli learned that he too has been fingered in the probe. Though he insists he is innocent, Martelli resigned from both the Cabinet and the party. When the Socialists met to choose a successor to disgraced leader Bettino Craxi, charged with six counts of corruption, they turned instead to Giorgio Benvenuto, 55, a veteran union official.

The Socialists are not the only party touched by corruption. An informant told investigators that Arnaldo Forlani, an ex-Prime Minister and former head of the Christian Democrat Party, had conspired with Craxi to split payoffs for government contracts. Forlani denied the charges. And members of the Italian Social Democratic Party are suspected of accepting illegal contributions. The damage wrought by the ongoing scandals may be irreparable. Italian newspaper headlines are flatly proclaiming the end of the First Republic, as Italy's postwar democracy is known. With 51 governments since 1945, it would be hard for the second republic not to be an improvement on the first.