In April's general election the
right-wing led by Berlusconi
won 47 of the vote and the centre-left coalition 37%. The Northern League, a racist far right party, which is part of Berlusconi's coalition. scored votes in excess of 25% in traditionally left-leaning northern Italian regions such as Lombardy. The party now DALL' AFGHAMISTRU has 23 senators and 46 MPs and scored just over 8% of the national vote.
Two weeks after
Berlusconi's victory, in the
elections for Rome city council,
Gianni Alemanno won and
became the mayor of Rome.
Alemanno was a minister
in Berlusconi government
between 2001 and 2006 and
he has strong connections with fascist groups in Rome. We can consider him as a fascist.
In addition to this very bad electoral situation we have to note, in recent months, a rise of the activity of the farright groups and in the number of racist attacks, especially against gypsies. Not only did the right win the elections, but it is also exerting a strong influence on Italian society, especially through the use
racist campaigns against immigrants. How did this happen? The main responsibility for this dire situation belongs to the centre-left coalition, led by Romano Prodi, which had been in government for the previous two years. Prodi won the election in 2006, with a narrow majority over Berlusconi, who VIN LA BASE :/ / WWW.SINISTRACRITICA.ORG had governed for the previous 5 years, but failed to meet people's expectations. Many people had anticipated that
Prodi would change the worst of Berlusconi's laws-for example, the 'legge 30", which
had made working conditions
more insecure. Instead of
abolishing this law, Prodi
made it worse, extending the
minimum retirement age by
19 5 years. Berlusconi's law had raised the retirement age from 57 to 60: Prodi's amendment obliged people to work till the age of 62.
Another example of Prodi playing to the right was his response to the Bossi-Fini law, a piece of legislation which worsened the conditions of migrants. He didn't abolish it. Instead, last autumn, following the murder of a woman by a gipsy, and a racist campaign by the right-wing and the media, Prodi's government approved the 'pacchetto sicurezza', a series of laws which gave more power to the police and facilitated the expulsion of immigrants. Gipsies and Romanians are the most common victims of these racist laws. So Prodi's government, instead of fighting back against the right, made the right stronger.
On foreign policy, Prodi supported Italian military participation in Iraq and Afghanistan, and sent military forces to Lebanon as part of the UN mission. His policies were completely in support of Italian imperialism, especially in Middle East. In all the parliamentary votes on Italian foreign policy, his government was in agreement with the right-wing opposition. The votes were almost unanimous.
So it was no surprise that Berlusconi won and that the left parties had such bad results. The main parliamentary opposition party is now the Democratic Party, led by the former mayor of Rome, Walter Veltroni. This party was set up last autumn, as a Catholiccentre party. heir of the Democrazia Cristiana and the Democratici di Sinistraitself heir of the Communist Party. Their model is the American Democratic Party.
But the worst results in the April general election were suffered by the parties of the left: Rifondazione Comunista, the Greens and Comunisti Italiani, a smaller communist party which was created after a previous split in Rifondazione.
These three parties had
formed a coalition called La
Sinistra-l'Arcobaleno (the rainbow left). In the previous general election in 2006
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20
Rifondazione alone won 6%
of the vote and these three
parties together polled more
than 10%.
these parties' combined vote
was 3%—less than is needed
to win a seat in parliament.
For the first time since the end of the Second World War there is no one in the Italian
parliament who claims to be a communist.
Rifondazione Comunista and its leader Fausto Bertinotti, who was the nominated leader of the 'rainbow coalition', are responsible for this defeat.
They are now paying the price for their unconditional support the Prodi's government. Rifondazione for the last two years had voted for every measure taken by the government: they voted for war, for cuts in social services, for racist policies, ete. This was the same Fausto Bertinotti who, a few years ago during the huge mobilisations in Italy against the war, led Rifondazione in the movement against the war and neoliberalism. Sinistra Critica emerges Sinistra Critica was born as a current inside Rifondazione Comunista. In recent years we strongly alliance with the liberal left and its support for the Prodi government. We argued that it was impossible for Prodi, the former president of the European commission and his coalition, which supported the interests of the Italian bourgeoisie, to do anything in the interests of the working class.
The relationship between Sinistra Critica and Rifondazione came to a breaking point when Sinistra Critica's MP, Franco Turigliatto, refused to vote for a government
which endorsed Italian foreign policy, the Italian war missions, and the expansion of a US military air base in Vicenza. When he refused to vote, Rifondazione expelled him, accusing him of putting the government in danger. A few years ago
Bertinotti was a leader of the
anti-war movement, and now
his party was expelling an MP for he refusing to vote for the
war. Following Turigliatto's expulsion, Sinistra Critica began progressively to build itself as organisation independent from
Rifondazione. It was the only left opposition to the Prodi government in Parliament.
Since then Sinistra Critica has played a positive role in re-launching the anti-war movement and in building the demonstration against Bush's visit last June. It also played an active role in building opposition to the anti-working class policies of the government.
The April elections have shown that the decision to take part in the Prodi government was a complete disaster. Prodi's measures were worse than Berlusconi's, and now Berlusconi and the right are stronger than ever. Rifondazione was penalised by voters who no longer find it credible. As a result of losing its parliamentary representation, Rifondazione is in a deep crisis.
Sinistra Critica has a clear view of Rifondazione's leading group. There is nothing positive they can do for the left and the workers' movement. They are responsible for the disaster of the left and the only useful thing they can do is go home.
Sinistra Critica now aims to build a broad and coherent anti-capitalist left. It held its first national conference last December in Rome and decided that its political activity in the next years will be based on:
The importance of working in social movements. • Independence neoliberal left and opposition to the Democratic Party (this will be a criterion for us in deciding our alliances with other political currents). • Deprioritising electoral work Defending the idea of Communism There is no more space for alliances with social democratic
forces. When the left took
part in the government it did a disservice to the workers'
movement. We maintain that
the only possible left we can
build is an anti-capitalist left;
and at our national conference
we adopted the proposal for a 'costituente anticapitalista'an anti-capitalist constituent
assembly—to bring together political organisations to the left of Rifondazione.
Sinistra Critica refuses to take a sectarian attitude in this. Our forces have to be used to build a larger political organisation, so we prefer to consider ourselves as a movement rather than a party.
But in the meantime we are working to strengthen our organisation. After the Prodi government fell last February we decided to stand in the elections. It was a difficult decision. We were a new organisation and we had just a few thousand Euros for the campaign. Our symbol was the hammer and the sickle, not because we are obsessed with symbols, Sinistra *Critica ecologista femminista
comunista but because in this particular situation, when Rifondazione is replacing the hammer and sickle with the rainbow symbol and abandoning the idea of communism as an alternative society, we defend it.
our symbol also reflect the ecologist and feminist left, because we think that a modern anti-capitalist left must consider itself feminist and ecological. Sinistra Critica is deeply involved in the feminist movement. It was the only political organisation to speak about women's issues during the electoral campaign. Our female comrades played an important part in the campaign against the attacks on abortion
ITALY rights and women rights by most other political forces and by the Pope.
We also think ecology is very important. In Italy there are strong pressures to introduce nuclear energy. Governments and local administrations have always supported a system of waste disposal in Italy based on dumps and incinerators, a policy which benefits capitalists and is harmful for the environment and people's health. In recent months there have been mobilisations against the construction of new dumps and incinerators which have been harshly repressed by the police.
The electoral campaign was a good opportunity to put forward our ideas. We got 0.5% of the national vote, a good result in the circumstances. But the most important fact is that during the campaign we met many activists disappointed by Rifondazione who found in Sinistra Critica a new chance to be engaged. In the electoral campaign we doubled the number of cities where we have activists and this gives us the basis to build our organisation and campaign against the new Berlusconi government.
At the moment Sinistra Critica is launching campaign about wage levels in Italy, which are amongst the lowest in Europe, and about the absence of unemployment benefit.