Political instability in Italy
April’s election resulted in defeat for the
widely-hated Berlusconi, with the centre-left cobbling together a very
broad, weak and unstable coalition. But it is only a matter of time
before this government too starts to attack workers’ conditions and
living standards. CLARE DOYLE reports.
GIVEN THE DEPTH of feeling against the previous
right-wing government of billionaire tycoon and swindler, Silvio
Berlusconi, the left parties should have swept the board in the
elections of 9/10 April. In the preceding five years, practically every
layer of the working class, much of the intelligentsia and middle class,
and millions of students and young people had shown their opposition to
its policies - on the streets, in strikes and general strikes, and in
local elections.
Only the failure of the trade union tops and the
workers’ political leaders to carry these struggles through to a
conclusion had left ‘the cavalier’ in the saddle. Many went to the polls
determined to unseat him through the ballot box this time.
It took more than five weeks after the general
election in Italy for the victorious centre-left coalition, l’Unione
(The Union), to form a government under the non-party prime minister,
Romano Prodi. For that to happen, a new president had to be elected by
parliamentary and regional representatives.
Eighty-year-old Giorgio Napolitano is the first
ex-communist head of state in Italy’s history. He claims to be a
‘president of all Italians’ and, as a member of the ex-communist
Democratici di Sinistra (DS – Left Democrats), he represents no threat
to the capitalist class. He served it well as interior minister in
Prodi’s last government (1996-98) which attacked workers’ rights and
living standards. But the out-going prime minister, Berlusconi, would
not endorse Napolitano and nearly half of the eligible electors
presented blank votes! This election and that for the speakers of the
two houses of parliament were the subject of much contention and
manoeuvring. They gave a foretaste of the problems that lie ahead for
the new government.
The Union has a majority in the lower house (Chamber
of Deputies) of more than 64 MPs, thanks only to changes in the
electoral law made by Berlusconi’s defeated government! Out of the
nearly 40 million who voted (nearly 84% of the electorate), the Union
gained just 25,000 more votes than the right-wing House of Liberties
coalition. In the upper house (the Senate) - elected differently but
with equal legislative powers to the Chamber - the government coalition
has a fragile majority of just two seats.
Rifondazione Comunista (RC) polled 2,229,604 votes
for the Chamber (up 361,000 on 2001). Partito dei Comunisti Italiani (PdCI)
got 884,912. Their combined vote was on a par with the 8% for the RC in
1996, before the split off to the right, led by Armando Cossutta, which
continued supporting the privatising and cutting Olive Tree coalition
government under Prodi. In the Senate, where the PdCI did not stand
separately and where the RC was the only list using the
hammer-and-sickle emblem, Rifondazione’s vote increased by 809,000 to
2,518,624. This indicates a large number of voters wanting to defeat
Berlusconi by voting for the party seen to be the most leftwing.
The majority of young and first-time voters voted
for the centre-left. The number of blank and spoilt ballots was
massively down on previous elections to just over one million – down 60%
for the Chamber, 66% for the Senate. In the north, where the right is
strongest, the extra 3-4% who turned out voted for one of the three
major parties of Berlusconi’s coalition.
But there was not as determined a mood by potential
voters for the left. Many were perplexed by the lack of a clear
alternative presented by any of the centre-left parties and by the
pledges of the RC leaders to remain loyal to a Prodi government. Many
remembered the record of the Olive Tree coalition and its neo-liberal
attacks and did not see any real difference between the two major blocs.
This accounts for the apparent stalemate. Waverers
may well have been affected at the last minute by the scaremongering of
Berlusconi, given wide publicity by his own media empire. Prodi played
into his hands. With no policies for dealing with the dire economic
situation, he spoke of increasing taxes and ‘cutting labour costs’.
Vague policies
AS PRESIDENT OF the European Commission (1991-96)
and Italy’s prime minister (1996-98), Prodi showed himself perfectly
capable of forcing workers, unemployed and young people to pay for the
bosses’ crises. It is for this reason, after all, that the bosses’
organisation, Confindustria, had decided in this election to send the
Italian working class back to the ‘school’ of the centre left. With the
Fiat magnate, Luca Cordero de Montezemolo, at its head, Confindustria is
now firmly back under the control of the big family capitalists rather
than the smaller ones who favoured Berlusconi in the recent past.
In his populist manner, Berlusconi pictured Prodi as
a marauder and himself as a miracle-worker, promising to lift all manner
of burdensome taxes – on housing, rubbish collection, etc. He wheeled
out his well-worn anti-communist propaganda about the expropriators and
vindictive ‘red’ magistrates trying to get him convicted for fraud and
corruption!
Unfortunately, Rifondazione under Fausto Bertinotti
ran its election campaign on vague policies under the slogan, ‘You bet
Italy can really change’. Bertinotti gave his support to the vague and
wordy programme of the Union, without reference to a party congress. The
RC gave no commitment to pursue even the minimum demands of the
anti-Berlusconi movements, such as the immediate withdrawal of troops
from Iraq. Another would have been abolition, not review, of the Moratti
‘reforms’, which have meant widespread privatisation of the education
system and the removal of the democratic self-management mechanisms
achieved during the big struggles of the late 1960s and 1970s.
Abolition, not amendment, of the Biagi laws (Law 30)
should also be a central part of the RC’s programme. The law allows
employers to take on young workers without fixed contracts, resembling
the notorious CPE proposals of the French government. Rifondazione MPs
should be putting down resolutions in parliament to push these important
demands to the fore.
Some left trade union leaders, like Gianni Rinaldini
and Giorgio Cremaschi, have made noises about these demands being
pursued, in spite of the small majority the ‘left’ has in parliament.
Militancy on the part of workers has continued. Eight-hour strikes
across Italy went ahead on 28 April and again on 19 May for a monthly
increase of €111. Municipal buses, trams and underground systems came to
a halt. But the overriding mood at the top of the big trade union
federations is for ‘concertazione’ – doing deals with the bosses and
government which crush the demands of the workers to see some results
from a change in government. But, given the grave economic situation and
the long period of big sacrifices by the working class, new class
battles are almost inevitable.
Last time around, Prodi’s government enjoyed a long
honeymoon. In fact, there were no major strikes even when the government
began to introduce neo-liberal cuts and pivatisation. There was
eventually the political revolt of the RC, which had initially supported
the formation of the centre-left government. Many workers blamed the RC
rather than the attacks of the government for the subsequent victory of
the hated Berlusconi government.
European Union leaders and the IMF are baying for
immediate measures to curb Italy’s deficits. The Corriere della Sera
newspaper has spoken of this as a ‘mission impossible’. One Italian
economist described the task facing Prodi and the new finance minister,
Tommaso Padoa-Schioppa, as being "like trying to change the engines of a
jumbo jet while it is still in the air!"
The Times on 2 May wrote: "Speculation that Italy
will be forced to leave the euro is dismissed by economists and
politicians – but talk of an ‘Argentina-style’ slide to economic
disaster is not so easily brushed aside". One Prodi aide has said that
€7 billion needs to be raised to reduce the budget deficit.
Padoa-Schioppa, a former European Central Bank official, will not be
asking the capitalist class for restraint, only the long-suffering
working class!
Italy has suffered more than other European
countries from the competition of cheap labour goods such as garments
and shoes. These are produced largely by small firms that have supported
Berlusconi. He is recruiting their support for a tax strike as another
ruse for sabotaging and bringing down the Prodi government.
The defeated prime minister has shown himself to be
an extremely ungracious loser. And there are some very material reasons.
The conflict of interest rules have been changed to allow Berlusconi to
dominate 90% of the country’s TV, for example, through the state-run
channels and his Mediaset company. They could now be reversed, although
this looks unlikely; Bertinotti had his wrists slapped by Prodi for even
suggesting that Mediaset should be ‘slimmed down’.
One of the most important reasons for Berlusconi’s
belligerence must be the very real prospect of doing years behind bars!
Under the statute of limitations, time may have run out on many of the
cases against him for fraud and corruption. But now the Mills bribery
case has surfaced, involving the estranged husband of New Labour
minister, Tessa Jowell!
More shocking even than Berlusconi’s constant
attempts to organise a return to power is the fact that his manoeuvrings
have gone unchallenged, without any attempt by the left parties to
appeal to workers and young people to come onto the streets to show
their indignation. Berlusconi was, in effect, trying to carry out a
bloodless coup against the new democratically-elected government by
wheeling out Giulio Andreotti, a proven Mafia associate, as candidate
for Speaker of the Senate. The attempt failed, but no left party lifted
a finger to call for mass protests to block the path of the right. This
should be put forward as a rallying call in the event of Berlusconi
trying any more of his tricks to trample under foot the democratic
verdict of the electorate.
Rifondazione in office
BERTINOTTI HAS REPEATED his oath of loyalty to the
Union for the full term of five years. It will be Bertinotti’s job, as
the new Speaker of the Chamber, to police the centre-left MPs, whip them
into line and do all in his power to save the life of the capitalists’
government! But this will be a weak government, teetering on the edge of
crisis throughout its life. It may not last more than a few weeks, let
alone a few years.
Bertinotti appears to be perfectly at home in his
new role. It fell to him, in the absence of a sworn in prime minister at
the time, to make the official announcement about the election of the
new president. On the same day, he played host to the president of
Venezuela, Hugo Chávez.
The RC’s paper, Liberazione, radiates joy at the
current state of affairs, with Rifondazione – the second-largest
separate party in the Chamber – participating fully, including in the
cabinet, in a government that crosses the class lines and is destined to
attack the working class even more than that of Berlusconi.
A Bertinotti supporter, Franco Giordano, has been
elected general secretary of the RC with 68% support. The largest
opposition formations within the Rifondazione are the ‘Ernesto’ faction,
from a Stalinist background, and the Mandelite ‘Erre’. Having objected
to joining a centre-left coalition without the agreement of the party,
these groupings now appear to accept participation in a government with
capitalist parties. The Union is a very broad alliance, including the
‘radical’ Catholic but capitalist Margherita party, the DS and PdCI
(also in the cabinet), as well as the RC.
Ernesto statements in the wake of the election talk
of a "new phase" in the life of the RC, the need to work together and
"leave differences behind". The Erre faction ambiguously pronounces that
the government, "will either have more radicality, and will be a
government of alternative, or it won’t last".
The much smaller ‘Falce e Martello’ Trotskyists in
the RC are opposed to participation in Prodi’s neo-liberal government.
But they appear more concerned about the proposed merger of DS with
Margherita to form a US-style Democratic Party - a move which seems a
real possibility. These two parties received more votes together in
elections to the Chamber than separately in the Senate (31% compared
with 27%). But this, according to Falce e Martello, would mean the
disappearance of Italy’s "main mass workers’ party", the DS! The DS has
long taken the road of being a capitalist party, even while maintaining
a layer of electoral support amongst workers.
One of the three ‘Progetto Comunista’ groups within
the RC, the one around Francesco Ricci, announced its departure from
Rifondazione the day after the election. This was before any worker
looking on had even blinked! It is true that during the election
campaign, the Prodi team had discouraged any expectations on the part of
workers, but many will give it a chance to come up with something.
Leaving the party at this stage, and not in opposition to a concrete
issue which a genuine workers’ party could not accept, means that this
grouping lost the chance of taking any combative workers still within
the party with it. (The RC still has at least a formal membership of up
to 100,000.)
Another Progetto group that has so far remained in
the RC is the only major faction campaigning for the party to change
course and not participate in a capitalist government. Unfortunately,
this grouping, while it calls itself Trotskyist, is regarded as a bit
eccentric for its abstract sectarian views, particularly on
international issues: uncritical support for the ‘resistance’ in Iraq,
uncritical support for the Taliban in the past, and the elimination of
the state of Israel! One of its leaders, Marco Ferrando, was taken off
the RC list for the Senate when he voiced some of these views during the
campaign. Nevertheless, this grouping, while lacking a skilful approach
to issues of more direct concern to workers in Italy, could yet become a
focal point for dissatisfaction in the party.
Events – economic and political crises - will create
huge tensions in Italian society and provoke major clashes. These will
put strains on the RC which might find itself faced with further, more
substantial splits unless a change is wrought in the direction of
independent, anti-capitalist, class policies. A recall conference should
be demanded now to discuss all these issues. When new workers’ parties
are in the process of formation in many other countries around the world
– Germany, Britain, Brazil, South Korea - the fate of Rifondazione and,
tied to that, the prospects of victorious struggles on the part of the
Italian working class, are of vital concern to fellow socialists and
communists internationally.
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