What does rightist win in Italy elections mean?
By
John Catalinotto
Published May 3, 2008 9:06 AM
The party of rightist media magnate Silvio Berlusconi and his allies won a
large majority in the Italian parliamentary elections of April 13-14. As a
result, Berlusconi, considered an ally of U.S. President George W. Bush, will
become prime minister for the third time.
With 47 percent of the vote, Berlusconi’s coalition won 343 of the 630
seats in the lower house and a similar portion of the Senate. His largest
opponent, the Democratic Party-led coalition whose head is Walter Veltroni, won
239 seats.
While Veltroni’s coalition is described as “center-left” and
Berlusconi’s as “center-right,” many of their policies
coincide in practice. The outgoing “center-left” government, under
Roman Prodi—the predecessor to Veltroni—sent Italian troops to
Afghanistan and Lebanon, supported the secession of Kosovo from Serbia and
significantly increased Italy’s military spending.
The vote was also a disaster—in the electoral arena—for any
communist parties in Parliament. For the first time since World War II, there
will be no members of the Italian Parliament who identify themselves as
communists. After the 2006 elections, in contrast, the Communist Refoundation
Party (RC) had 41 members in the lower house and 27 in the Senate, and the
Communist Party of Italy (PCdI) had 16 members in the lower house, which also
had 15 Greens. Now there are none of the above.
During the last “center-left” government led by Prodi, the larger
communist parties joined the government coalition. Fausto Bertinotti, leader of
the Refoundation Communists, was even elected president of the lower house. The
RC was unable to even defend existing workers’ rights, let alone increase
them, yet it shared responsibility for the government’s regressive
domestic and foreign policies.
Bertinotti’s party alienated many militants by voting with the
government—even on sending troops to Afghanistan and increasing the
military budget. Without RC support in Parliament, the Prodi government would
have fallen earlier. In the end, the government fell in February when a minor
bourgeois party voted against it in the Senate.
That government also failed to enact laws protecting jobs for young people,
arousing a massive protest of 800,000 workers and youth in Rome last Oct. 21.
To underline the contradictions inherent in the situation, the two communist
parties played key roles in organizing the protest directed at the government.
Yet they remained part of this government until it fell in February.
Electoral rules promote coalitions
For decades, Italy’s proportional representation laws allowed many
parties—even the smallest—to have representatives in Parliament.
Currently the Italian capitalist ruling class is attempting to impose a less
democratic political structure more like the U.S. system. Two capitalist
parties—one slightly more to the right than the other—would
alternate in office under this new system.
In the hope of holding their seats in Parliament, or at least in winning some
representation in the April election, the two communist parties, the Greens and
a small new party joined to form the “left-rainbow” electoral bloc.
The RC and PCdI gave up the communist hammer-and-sickle icon. Their policies
alienated many of the most revolutionary workers and activists.
Running separately but as part of the coalition with Prodi in 2006, the
“Rainbow” parties got over 10 percent or almost 4 million votes.
They only got 3.1 percent or about 1.2 million votes this April running as a
bloc but separate from the Veltroni coalition.
Part of that loss came about because two smaller tendencies split from
Refoundation to run separately on the ballot—with hammer and sickle
symbols and a more leftist program—for what could only be a protest vote,
as they could not reach the 4-percent level required for winning seats. Each
got about 0.5 percent of the vote, or around 180,000 votes each.
A larger group of usually communist voters actively boycotted the election,
something that is done very rarely in Italy as traditionally nearly all
eligible Italians vote. Only 80 percent of Italians voted this time, compared
to 83 percent in 2006. Thus maybe another half-million to a million people may
have withheld their vote out of left-wing anger at the Bertinotti
leadership.
Another half-million to a million may have voted for Veltroni’s coalition
as a “lesser evil” in the hope of forestalling a win by
Berlusconi.
While this Parliamentary loss represents an historic turning point for the
communist movement, most of the lost votes were not a shift to the right but
reflect a rejection of the policies followed by the leaders of the
organizations involved. There can still be a strong struggle by workers outside
Parliament—in the factories and the streets.
There was one part of the lost votes, however, that is more serious.
Loss to Northern League
In the more industrial northern part of Italy, people are working more but
earning less. In the south, there is heavy unemployment. In all areas there are
fewer secure jobs for young people, who now face a lower standard of living
than their parents had. Under these conditions, the failure of the left to lead
an anti-capitalist struggle can lead some workers to demagogic, right-wing
parties.
The Northern League (LN), a Berlusconi ally, promotes autonomy for those
northern regions and is xenophobic against both immigrants and Italy’s
south. The LN’s strength has been among the Italian smaller capitalists,
many of whom these days are on the brink of ruin. The LN doubled its votes, to
about 8.3 percent.
Disappointingly for progressive workers, the League’s
propaganda—Italy’s version of Lou Dobbs and Tom
Tancredo—attracted maybe a half-million workers’ votes that had
gone to the Communists in earlier elections in Italy’s north. To reverse
this setback will require serious struggle.
CR head Bertinotti has resigned and retired from politics. The Refoundation
Communist activists are meeting and re-evaluating their role, as are other
anti-imperialist tendencies.
E-mail: jcat@workers.org
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