The Italian elections
Barkan, Joanne
WHAT A DIFFERENCE fourteen days can make. On May 13, the center-left coalition that had governed Italy since 1996 lost control of both houses of Parliament to the center-right coalition led...
...The American press reported that the centerleft and center-right had much the same program...
...28 n DISSENT / Summer 2001...
...And if it's a single party, will it be social democratic or reformist with a more centrist bent...
...In reality, big spending and tax cuts can't be on any government's agenda if Italy is to stay in Europe's single currency system...
...JOANNE BARICAN is a New York-based writer and author of Visions of Emancipation: The Italian Workers' Movement Since 1945...
...The Olive Tree's fatal misstep was failure to achieve a campaign agreement with two independent groups: the centrist Di Pietro Slate, which was a vehicle for a celebrity prosecutorturnedpolitician, and Communist Refounding (Rifondazione Comunista), a part of the Communist Party that held onto its communist identity after the fall of the Berlin Wall...
...The Daisy was actually a coalition of four parties, and the Sunflower was an election alliance of two others...
...Part of the center-left opposes deregulation...
...This year the Olive Tree broke into three groups for the proportional voting: the Left Democrats (remains of the former Communist Party), the Daisy, and the Sunflower...
...On May 13, the center-left coalition that had governed Italy since 1996 lost control of both houses of Parliament to the center-right coalition led by Silvio Berlusconi...
...On issues of sexuality, family policy, education, scientific research, and public monies for religious (in practice, Catholic) institutions, the center-right takes conservative, Vaticanfriendly positions...
...Under Italy's byzantine electoral law, parties compete for 75 percent of the seats in Parliament in a winner-takes-all system...
...His coalition has a solid parliamentary majority over the main opposition coalition (177 seats to 125 in the Senate...
...The coalition's left wing sees labor unions as crucial for defending wage earners and the unemployed...
...The centerright supports deregulating the labor market so that companies can fire workers more easily, hire them on more profitable terms, and weaken the unions...
...And then there's the chronic dilemma, debated since 1996: Should the Olive Tree remain a coalition of autonomous parties, each DISSENT / Summer 2001 n 27 with its own political identity, or should it become a single party with a single leadership...
...With each power play and cabinet reshuffling, the coalition worked less effectively and looked less appealing...
...He's likely to govern for a full five-year term (if he stays out of jail...
...Then fourteen days later, the center-left won run-off mayoral elections in Rome, Turin, and Naples—the three major cities in play...
...Forza Italia is now Italy's largest party by a wide margin...
...That evening, three hundred thousand people crowded into Rome's Piazza del Popolo in a cathartic celebration, cheering party leaders and weeping with relief...
...There are also several parties outside the Olive Tree...
...For the Italian center-left, Berlusconi's election is that calamity and more...
...The centrists and even some Left Democrats see the unions as a backward interest group that stifles economic progress...
...The main coalition, called the Olive Tree, consists of seven or eight ever-in-flux parties and mini-formations, ranging from center to socialist left...
...The secretary of the largest union confederation warned that the workers would fight back...
...Overall, the center-left takes more left-leaning stands on these issues, but the coalition is divided...
...In addition, his own party, Forza Italia, rolled right over its coalition partners...
...Disagreements rarely end in compromise or with someone losing the skirmish but sticking around to fight another day...
...The business types and the social democrats clash over economic policy...
...Everyone understood this as code for abolishing part of the Workers' Statute—the 1970 law that spelled out workers' rights for the first time in Italy...
...Just days after the vote, the president of Italy's powerful association of business leaders called on the upcoming government to make "difficult choices...
...It remains to be seen if they will fight Berlusconi alone or be joined by a strong and united political opposition...
...During its five years in office, the coalition devoured three prime ministers and four governments (ministerial cabinets...
...For many Europeans outside Italy, his election is a political and ethical calamity for Italian democracy (some abandoned "good form" during the campaign to agitate against him...
...If their candidates had run in cooperation with Olive Tree candidates, the center-left would have remained in power...
...The two coalitions differ on labor relations and on social and cultural issues...
...In economic policy, they both promised the moon on the spending side (vast public works programs, development funds for the South, more money for teachers and low-income pensioners, improved social services...
...The Left Democrats tumbled from 21.1 percent of the vote in the Chamber of Deputies to 16.6 percent...
...Divided, they caused their own defeat...
...Journalists everywhere have already catalogued the mind-boggling extent of Berlusconi's business empire, his domination of Italy's media, his refusal to divest holdings since he entered politics in 1994, and the eight court cases in which he is being investigated for everything from bribing judges to laundering money to association with the Mafia...
...Internal divisions are the curse of the centerleft...
...The smaller parties can't agree with the larger ones on a new voting system (which Italy desperately needs...
...The parliamentary elections gave the debate a new twist by upsetting power relations inside the Olive Tree...
...The parliamentary fiasco had jolted the parties into working effectively enough to avoid another electoral rout and complete demoralization...
...ADISMAL TRADITION of intraparty cannibalism in post-1945 Italy still infects both right and left...
...The victories in Rome, Turin, and Naples have not resolved any of the political disagreements among the center-left parties or inside the Olive Tree...
...Most of the parties consolidate into either a centerleft coalition or a center-right coalition to vie for these seats...
...The Catholics and the secularists differ on social policy...
...The fact that in the United States a Paul Wellstone and a Diane Feinstein can function in the same political party for more than six months does not translate into Italian...
...For many observers, it was the coalition's most cohesive moment in five years...
...Who picks these names...
...Between 1996 and 1998, the center-left government cut spending enough to squeeze Italy into the required limits, but just barely...
...Berlusconi promptly responded that he was ready and willing...
...Taken together, the parties of the center-left actually increased their share of the vote, but they couldn't find a way to cooperate...
...The centerright, however, promised to cut taxes on investments, venture capital, financial transactions, and employers' payroll...
...On the income side, they both promised lower taxes...
...The center-left emphasized relief for moderate- and low-income taxpayers...
...part supports a milder version...
...That's partially correct...
...They run as separate parties and as competitors in a proportional voting system for 25 percent of the seats...
...More often, the minority launches a bitter and obstructionist internal opposition or quits and founds a new party...
...Forza Italia's share of the proportional vote in the Chamber 26 n DISSENT / Summer 2001 POLITICS ABROAD of Deputies jumped from 20.6 percent to 29.4 percent while its coalition partners all lost ground...
...368 to 250 in the Chamber of Deputies, although several seats are still in dispute...
...The new Daisy group won a surprisingly high 14.5 percent...
...Berlusconi's dangerous solution to this problem was to use his personal resources ($12-14 billion in assets, three television networks with a 45-percent audience share, and Italy's largest advertising agency) to build the electoral equivalent of a one-man juggernaut...
...But winning in three key cities doesn't diminish Berlusconi's victory...
Vol. 48 • July 2001 • No. 3
