The Utopian

By Alexander Lee.

“The recent rise of right-wing populism in Italy has been frightening. Counterintuitively, only the Italian left can stop it.”

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Umberto Bossi, the leader of Italy’s right-wing Lega Nord, was triumphant. Wearing a bright green shirt, his glasses glinting in the glare of the June sun, he stood beaming at the cheering crowd which had gathered in Pontida for his party’s annual gathering. Raising his arms, half to call for silence, half in exultation, he began to speak. ‘Noi siamo indispensabili,’ he cried. ‘We are indispensible.’ The crowd roared in approval. They knew this was more than rhetoric. Bossi was - and is - right. The Lega - the populist party of immigration controls and barely-concealed racism - is now calling the shots in Italian politics.

The Lega Nord has been a member of Silvio Berlusconi’s government since the 2008 general election. Until very recently, however, the Lega was regarded with some scepticism, and was treated with a certain degree of caution. This was not without reason. The Lega has been an unreliable and even dangerous member of previous Berlusconi governments. Claiming that the terms of their electoral pact had not been respected, the Lega dramatically withdrew their support and caused the collapse of Berlusconi’s first government in December 1994. Despite this, Berlusconi knew that he needed them when it came to forming his fourth government just over a year ago. Only with the Lega’s support could he command a majority. Yet when it came to policy, Berlusconi remained wary. The Lega were a necessary partner, but they were nevertheless a junior partner and many of their more extreme wishes were quietly pushed to the sidelines. Barely a month ago, however, everything changed.

On 6th June, Italy held elections for the European Parliament as well as for provincial and communal governments. Beset by scandals and shaken by controversies, the elections were a key test for Silvio Berlusconi’s government, of which the Lega Nord is a member. Despite his recent upsets, however, ‘il Cavaliere’ - as the flamboyant Berlusconi is known to Italians - had nothing to fear. It was, as Berlusconi himself declared, ‘un successo nonostante le calunnie’ - a success despite the calumnies. Across the country, the parties of the centre-right swept the board.
The results of the elections were seismic. In the European elections, Berlusconi’s PdL (Popolo della Libertà - People of Freedom) gained 35.5% of the vote, up from 31.6% in 2004 (combined results for Forza Italia and the Alleanza Nazionale). In the administrative elections, the results were yet more impressive. The right had made massive gains. In those provinces and communes which they had previously administered, the centre-right succeeded not merely in retaining control, but even increased their share of the vote. No fewer than fifteen of a total of 62 provinces changed hands from the centre-left to the centre-right.

Most strikingly, Italy’s so-called ‘Red Belt’, the central regions that have been the traditional home of left-wing politics since the glory days of Togliatti and the Italian Communist Party (PCI), shifted dramatically to the right. In Umbria and La Marche, the PD (Partito Democratico - Democratic Party) ignominiously slipped into second place. The province of Piacenza in Emilia-Romagna - a region in which the centre right has never held power at any level - elected Massimo Trespidi as governor with 52.77% of the vote, while Alessandro Ciriana seized control of Pordenone in Friuli-Venezia Giulia from the centre-left with an impressive 62.81% of the vote. In Florence and Bologna, the symbolic epicentres of the left’s history, centre-left candidates failed to achieve an absolute majority at the first ballot, requiring a run-off to defeat their opponents. The centre-left, by contrast, made not a single gain. The PD was simply no-where to be seen.

Commentators rightly saw the elections as a ringing endorsement of Berlusconi’s government. Despite all the recent scandals, the electorate had unequivocally endorsed his administration. But it was the Lega Nord which was the true winner. In the European elections, Bossi’s party gained 10.22% of the vote and nine seats in Strasbourg, up from 5% and four seats at the 2004 elections. Indeed, this was the biggest share of the vote that the party has ever received in a nationwide election. In Lombardy, the Lega won 22.72% of all votes cast for the European Parliament, pushing the PD into third place. In the administrative elections, the Lega tightened its grip on provincial and communal government in the north. In Bergamo, in Lombardy, the Lega gained 35.44% of the vote and 14 seats in the provincial elections, making it by far the largest and most powerful party (the PdL gained 22.45%, while the PD managed a mere 15.51%). In the province of Padua, it gained 24.84% of the vote, only just behind the PdL’s 27.52% and significantly ahead of the PD’s 20.97%. Extending its sphere of influence beyond its historic base in Lombardy and the Veneto, the Lega took 20.42% of the vote in the province of Novara in Piedmont, and won as many seats on the council as the PD.

The results of the 2009 elections effectively changed the balance of power within Berlusconi’s governing coalition. The Lega has made the transition from being a potentially dangerous minor partner to wielding an influence which Berlusconi can no longer afford to ignore. Although it is notoriously difficult to extrapolate from the results of local elections, all the signs indicate that the Lega is building on the trends of recent years and is progressively strengthening its hold on northern Italy. With no obvious indications that this mounting base of support is likely to decline any time soon, and mindful of the devastating effect of the Lega’s abandonment of his first government in late 1994, Berlusconi has been forced to recognise that his political future relies on maintaining good relations with Bossi and his party. In the harsh world of political realities, this means giving ground in key policy areas. As L’Espresso, a leading Italian weekly, put it, Bossi is now in the driving seat.

To outside observers, the growing power of the Lega Nord is cause both for fear and bewilderment. The Lega maintains an openly xenophobic platform which is given expression in frequently racist rhetoric and staunchly anti-immigration policies. An infamous and much-used campaign poster depicts a Native American chieftain with the slogan ‘Loro hanno subito l’immigrazione - ora vivono nelle riserve’ (‘They suffered immigration - now they live on reserves’). Recently, Bossi even proposed that the Italian Navy should open fire on boats carrying illegal immigrants to Italy.

However frightening the Lega’s xenophobic policies may be, it would nevertheless be mistaken to suggest that the party’s success should be attributed to a growth of racist attitudes in Italy. Commentators who have rightly highlighted the frightening implications of the Lega’s growing influence for Italy’s approach to immigration have erred in concentrating on its xenophobia when seeking an explanation for its rise. While there is no question that the Lega’s racist pronouncements are a cause for profound concern, the party is something of a wolf in sheep’s clothing. Its deeply unpleasant xenophobia is veiled by a broader package of policy proposals which have been carefully constructed to have wide appeal at a time when the left-wing PD is experiencing a crisis. Indeed, the results of the 2009 elections have more to do with economic policy and the disarray of Italy’s left than anything else.

At present, Italy is struggling to deal with the effects of the global recession. While it may not be suffering from the rampant inflation and fiscal chaos to which is was so regularly prey in previous decades, ordinary Italians are feeling the pinch. Consumer price inflation is forecast to decline to 0.5% from an annual average of 3.4% in 2008, but there are widespread predictions of Italy’s GDP shrinking by 4.6% in 2009 as a result of weak external demand. In April 2009, the Banca d’Italia recorded that exports of goods and services from Italy had shrunk by 21.7% since April 2008. Major Italian employers, such as Fiat are experiencing severe difficulties and further significant redundancies are expected, while Italy’s banks are not only having to place restrictions on borrowing, but are also having to fall back on state support to preserve their capital base. The burden of taxation remains high and, in part as a result of high debt-servicing costs, is unlikely to be brought down in the near future. Italy’s many part-time workers are worst hit. In February 2009, the salaries of those employed on a part-time basis were reported to have declined by 35.5%, while rents are rising slowly around the country. Despite much-vaunted investment in new employment agencies throughout Italy, government efforts to combat unemployment have been nothing short of a flop. Only 3.2% of people entering the working world find their jobs through state-run job centres, while 30.1% are hired as a result of family connections or through the intervention of a friend.

These are the conditions which have traditionally favoured the left. Throughout the second half of the twentieth century, periods of particular economic strain in Italy tended to favour the left at the expense of the right. Coming during periods of unusually high inflation and economic contraction, for example, the old PCI and Italian Socialist Party (PSI) significantly increased their share of the vote in the elections of 1953, 1963 and 1976, while the centre-right Christian Democrats (DC) either lost support or failed to make any gains. Today, however, precisely the reverse seems to be true.

But there is yet more to the picture. Not merely is the Lega gaining support during a period of economic uncertainty, but it is gaining most of its support from former left-wing voters. This is far from being a new trend. At the 1992 general election (when it garnered 8.7% of the national vote), 25.4% of its supporters were previously Christian Democrats, 18.5% had been communists, and 12.5% had been socialists. The trend is, however, accelerating. As the results of the 2009 administrative election reveals, the Lega is enticing more left-wing voters than ever before into its fold.

This is no coincidence. The deeply regionalist identity of the Lega Nord has left it well-placed to respond to such concerns. Since its foundation in 1991, the Lega Nord has consciously developed a brace of economic policies which an expression of its commitment to furthering the prosperity of the North. As Alberto Spektorowski has observed, one of the Lega’s key beliefs is that ‘the centralization of political authority and economic resources has both disregarded and harmed regional interests.’ As well as seizing upon a long-standing opposition to statist bureaucracy - embodied in the epithet of Roma ladrona, or ‘Thieving Rome’ - this belief has given rise to a series of economic policies which are of a broadly left-wing nature. Umberto Bossi, himself a former Communist supporter, has explained that his party has strong socialist tendencies. In a recent article in Corriere della Sera, Dario Di Vico has pointed out that there are many respects in which the Lega has adopted the PCI’s commitment to abolishing distinctions between socio-economic classes and opposing monopolist interests. In addition to advocating fiscal federalism, the Lega has come to support a social market economy and has loudly called for reform of the pensions system. As part of its emphasis on the need to put a stop to the waste of public money, it has advocated using a reduction in taxation to alleviate the financial burden on small and medium-sixed businesses, and the limitations on shop-floor employment. In this way, the Lega has articulated many of the frustrations of left-leaning voters and in responded to the grievances aired in the Italian media for many years.

But while it has a history of attracting some support from the left-wing at elections, the Lega has struggled to make significant inroads at previous elections. Then, successful and effective left-wing parties succeeded in propounding policies which made it difficult for the Lega Nord to mark itself out as a viable alternative in the economic field. Recently, however, the situation has changed. As Italy has slid ever deeper into an economic crisis stimulated by the global recession, many Italians have naturally become fearful for their financial futures. Whereas in the past, the parties of the left were a natural rallying point for those with such fears, however, the PD has fragmented to the point at which it no longer appears able to offer meaningful solutions for a large number of Italians.
Formed out of a number of smaller left-wing parties on 14th October 2007, the PD initially attracted a significant amount of support under the leadership of Walter Veltroni and - despite failing to win - garnered an impressive 37.5% of the popular vote at the 2008 general election in coalition with the IdV (Italia dei Valori - Italy of Values). Success was, however, short-lived. The growth of warring internal factions soon weakened the PD and the party was convulsed by internal squabbles over policies which struggled to broach the chasms which divided the party’s constituent parts. By early 2009, the situation had become grave. On 16th February, after weeks of damaging public spats, the PD was humiliatingly crushed in a regional election in Sardinia. The following day, Veltroni resigned and was replaced by his deputy, Dario Franceschini.

Franeschini, like Veltroni, has found it increasingly difficult to bring the diverse factions of the party to consensus, especially on economic policy. Obstructed by the breadth of interests which it contains, the PD has found it almost impossible to agree upon a coherent set of policies which might address the mounting economic crisis and appeal to the fears of Italian voters. Since the publication of its ‘Manifesto dei Valori’ (‘Manifesto of Values’) on 16th February 2008, the PD has not managed to articulate a single effective policy position in this area. The dignity of work, the need to overcome the clash between big and small interests, the desire for equality of opportunities, the idea of an open society, and the interdependence of enterprise and work have all been cornerstones of PD rhetoric for more than a year, but such notions express vague areas of general agreement between party factions rather than solid foundations for clear economic policies capable of safeguarding the financial future of millions of Italians. Attempts to transform these ‘values’ into a concrete platform have done little but cast both Veltroni and Franceschini into the midst of intense party rivalries.

The weakness of the PD has effectively created the political space for the Lega Nord’s economic policies to gain support. Fearful of the mounting economic crisis, disenchanted by the PD and unwilling to back Berlusconi’s PdL, Italian voters have sought refuge in the Lega. That is not to say that those who have turned to the party are in sympathy with its militant xenophobia, but that with few other alternatives, its left-leaning economic policies have come to seem increasingly attractive at a time when the future appears more and more daunting.

This, however, poses a problem. As Bossi observed, the growth of support for the Lega has made it an indispensible member of Berlusconi’s government. In the wake of the 2009 elections, the Lega will exert a stronger influence on government decisions - particularly in those ministries run by its members - and Berlusconi will be less willing to rebuff the party’s demands. Immigration is already being handled in a more aggressive fashion, and it is more than likely that the Lega’s strengthened position will allow it to impose its often violently right-wing agenda on social policy. There is no doubt that this is cause for deep misgivings and there can be but few who would not look on such a prospect with anything but fear. But if the Lega are to be stopped, and Italy is not to slide into xenophobic legislation, the reasons for its success must be addressed. However counter-intuitive it may seem, the Lega must be challenged not on its racism, but on its economic policies. The sheep’s clothing must, in other words, be removed for the wolf to be driven off. This can only be accomplished if Italy’s left manages to outline an effective economic position. Despite the deep divisions which separate those in the party, the PD must realise that it is the only bulwark against the Lega and that it has to overcome the factional squabbles that are ripping it apart. Still reeling from the results of the election and with a party congress due to be held in July, Franceschini is no doubt anxious to gloss over party differences and to make the PD tent as big as possible. What is needed, however, is a firm line. If the PD is committed to ensuring a free and open society in Italy, as its Manifesto dei Valori declared, then Franceschini must be prepared to risk dissent by pushing forward with clear economic policies which hark back to the strengths of the Italian left and which directly address the economic fears of the Italian people. If the frightening prospect of a more racist, more intolerant and more oppressive Italy is to be avoided, the PD must, like Danton, dare, dare again, always dare.

Alexander Lee, co-founder of The Utopian, is an historian of the Italian renaissance, living in Northern Italy.