Italy: right wing victory in elections shatters left unity
The centre-right coalition headed by billionaire media magnate Silvio Berlusconi has had an astounding victory in the Italian general election.
With a vast majority in both the upper and lower chambers, Berlusconi and his allies should be able to govern for the next five years without having to undergo any of the traumas that have brought down an average of one government per year since the end of the Second World War.
From the film festival in Cannes where his new movie is on show, left-wing film producer Nanni Moretti has let it be known who he holds responsible for the centre-left's crushing defeat.
In an astonishing announcement on the national news he declared: "Berlusconi shouldn't thank the millions of people who voted for him, since he has only one man to thank for his victory –&Mac247;Fausto Bertinotti.", leader of the left party Rifondazione comunista which refused to contest this election in a pact with the government coalition.
Looked at from a purely numerical point of view, Moretti is right. Berlusconi certainly got more votes than the centre-left, but the extent of his victory is mostly attributable to the constituency based electoral system.
If, for example, Rifondazione's 5 per cent of votes had been part of the centre-left's total, Berlusconi would have lost in the lower house (the Senate) and would not now be able to govern.
Indeed, despite appearances, Italy did not shift as far right as Berlusconi had hoped and did not respond altogether positively to the personal plebiscite into which he had transformed the election campaign. The notable percentage increase in consent for Berlusconi's Forza Italia is to be accounted for mainly by the votes taken from his own allies.
Moretti is a great film producer and has made an enormous contribution to the defence and diffusion of left-wing political culture in Italy.
But on this particular point he is completely off the wall. Rifondazione's success (it was the only small party to reach and even exceed the 4 per cent quota in the proportional representation section) was made possible by the relatively principled stance it took against the betrayals of the centre-left government.
In reply to Moretti, Bertinotti has stated that you cannot beat Berlusconi by handing over state money to private schools and by supporting NATO aggression in Yugoslavia. It is also the case that the main left-wing party, the Democratic Left (DS), lost 2 million votes without any help from Rifondazione comunista.
The DS's election campaign was a complete disaster and its support has fallen from 21 to 16 per cent. While Berlusconi was ranting on about huge tax cuts and "change", the DS limited itself to explaining how it had done an excellent job administering the affairs of bosses' state.
It continuously pointed to "successes" which have nothing to do with improvements in the living standards of working people: it harped on about the Maastricht criteria, Italy's international prestige, the expulsion of immigrants and the increase in casual labour.
The extent of the DS surrender and betrayal is evidenced in a number of further incidents. For example, one of their politicians in Lombardy has just announced that he hopes Berlusconi will govern for the full term since "this will add credibility to the first-past-the-post electoral system."
Moreover, its two leaders, Massimo D'Alema and Walter Veltroni, did not participate actively in the election campaign. Since October they considered the election irretrievably lost. For this reason, D'Alema focused all his attention on holding onto his besieged seat in the south of Italy, while Veltroni abandoned the sinking ship and ran for mayor in Rome.
In a word, the DS was leaderless. Its emergency congress called for late May-early June should fully reveal the depth of its crisis. Veltroni has already said that he will be stepping down from the post of secretary, and he may well even leave the party and take a portion of it with him.
Moretti forgot to mention these criminal betrayals in his impressionistic observations on the Italian elections and Rifondazione's roll in them. However, he is right about one thing. Bertinotti's unhidden satisfaction over the election result is immoral. Says Moretti: "Bertinotti is delighted that he came fifth in a league table of his own making."
And to be sure, since the results became clear the Rifondazione leader has been smiling and boasting and giving the impression that he couldn't care less about the fact that a right-wing government has an enormous majority with which to govern against workers' interests.
All this shows Rifondazione's electoral cretinism in crystallized form: it is happy about its own vote and the fact that its main nucleus of sharp-talking bureaucrats will keep its seats. To make matters even worse, it should be noted that Rifondazione's result was no big deal. Its historical high is about 10 per cent and it should have expected at least 7-8 per cent.
Moretti was right about one other thing. He remarked that "Bertinotti will use the next five years to appear on TV talk-shows and draw applause for his one-man performances." What Moretti doesn't say is that this represents a great danger for workers.
Over the next period Bertinotti will undoubtedly lay on his most eloquent left-wing rhetoric, since he has no need to account for this, and is free from having to vote for pro-boss budgets.
Workers may be attracted by the radical nature of his speeches only to see their hopes once more betrayed when Rifondazione once again makes unprincipled electoral alliances with the DS and the Christian Democrats, as it undoubtedly will. All this means that Bertinotti and Rifondazione will act as important obstacles to the diffusion of revolutionary ideas and to the construction of a revolutionary party.
Berlusconi's rhetorical and largely vacuous election manifesto was a incoherent mixture of Hayek and Keynes, tax cuts and public works programmes. That such brew of demagogic nonsense could bring to power a known crook speaks volumes for the damage done by the actions of the DS outgoing government. So, what to expect from the new government. Is Berlusconi about to unleash an enormous offensive against workers' rights?
This is not likely in the immediate future. Berlusconi will be going a lot slower than was promised to the bosses and the middle classes during the election campaign.
The news transmissions by his crony journalists on his own television stations in fact reveal that despite his enormous majority there is tremendous concern over international recognition. Furthermore, during a Wednesday evening national television political transmission, upcoming finance minister Giulio Tremonti was asked by a bosses' newspaper if the new government would be introducing the right to sack.
He replied in the negative, and said that bosses would have "the right to employ". When asked about the huge tax cuts promised, Tremonti remarked that these would be "gradual" and would depend on "economic growth".
Not only, then, is Berlusconi still reeling over the foreign press articles regarding his hazy past and dirty dealing, but the ghost of 1994 lives on. The mass working class movement of that year weighs like a nightmare on his brain and on the brains of his rotten hangers-on and grovellers.
But the fact that Berlusconi is already pulling his punches does not mean that workers can pull theirs. With their leaders having clearly surrendered to Berlusconi, Italian workers must prepare to defend themselves against imminent attacks once the new government settles in and is satisfied with its internal and external consensus.
Only by taking their mass organisations into their own hands can workers make Berlusconi relive his great tragedy of 1994 when he was sent back from whence he came long before he got a chance to make workers pay for the continuation of capitalism.
