Political parties in Italy

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The Italian party landscape was traditionally very fragmented, and many small parties were able to secure their influence again and again at the national level. Due to the frequent government crises and changing majorities in parliament, the smaller parties also had a not inconsiderable influence on parliamentary decision-making.

Party landscape from 1945 to 1994

Historical background

From 1922 to 1943, Benito Mussolini ruled Italy as the fascist dictator . After the end of the Second World War , two groups dominated, both of which had fought the dictatorship and were now anxious to prevent fascism from re-emerging, but differed significantly in their views: the Western-oriented Christian Democrats and the initially Soviet-loyal communists who followed suit and after distancing themselves from Moscow and appearing as a representative of Eurocommunism . This contrast shaped the public life of the Italians during the so-called First Republic (until 1994). The Italian political system reflects this.

This contrast can also be seen in many Italian films (e.g. Don Camillo and Peppone ). The contrast was also reflected in the trade union movement, the trade unions were divided into a communist ( CGIL ), a Christian ( CISL ), a social-democratic-laicist ( UIL ) and a neo-fascist camp ( CISNAL ).

The 1970s - the infamous anni di piombo (leaden years) - were dominated by political extremism. The terrorism of the left-wing extremist Red Brigades and the bloody attacks by neo-fascist extremists, in which the secret services were also involved, led to a threatening destabilization of the political situation.

The difficult circumstances led to a rapprochement between Christian Democrats and Communists ( compromesso storico ). The communists agreed to tolerate a Christian Democratic minority government. Conversely, the Christian Democrats allowed the Communists to enforce their demand for a link between wages and inflation (this regulation was then abolished again in the 1980s due to a wage inflation spiral that started).

Overview: important parties up to 1994

See also: Pentapartito

The most important parties in detail

Christian Democratic Party

For forty years, the Democrazia Cristiana (DC) participated in every government (until 1994), it was the dominant party and in the first few years was always in the region of 40% of the vote. This dominance slowly decreased until it was just under 30% in the end. While maintaining pure proportional representation (without a 4 or 5 percent hurdle), the party succeeded in preventing the Communists from taking over government by including four or five smaller parties (so-called Pentapartito ). The vast majority of prime ministers of the so-called First Republic (1946-1994) came from the Democrazia Cristiana. De Gasperi and Andreotti each led seven, Fanfani six and Moro five governments. Only four cabinets were led by members of other parties: namely the governments of Spadolini ( PRI , 1981–82), Craxi ( PSI , 1983–87), Amato ( PSI , 1992–93) and Ciampi (independent, 1993–1994).

Scandals of corruption and other illegal activities, including mafia, shook the party and triggered an internal collapse. Numerous small parties emerged from it, and numerous Christian Democrats found their new political home in both the new center-left and center-right camp.

Communist Party

The Communist Party of Italy with its long-time chairman Enrico Berlinguer was at the beginning of the 1970s with over two million members and around 30 percent of the vote, the strongest and most politically influential CP in the capitalist industrialized countries. In parliament she took second place. In 1976 the party had its best result in the Italian parliamentary elections, 34.4%, but remained behind the Christian Democrats. In 1984 the KPI managed to emerge as the strongest party for the first and only time: It received 33.3% of the vote in the European elections and ended up just ahead of the Christian Democrats with 32.97%.

The KPI has never been able to participate directly in national government. However, their tolerance was decisive for the existence of a Christian Democratic minority cabinet from 1976 to 1979.

Socialist party

The Partito Socialista Italiano (PSI), founded in 1892, represented the socialist tradition of Italy. After the Second World War, the PSI formed the popular front against "capitalist restoration" together with the communists. In the second half of the 1950s, the party gradually distanced itself from the KPI. The suppression of the uprisings in Hungary and Poland in 1956 played a central role. In 1963 a phase of center-left coalitions began, mainly supported by the DC and the PSI. In 1979, Sandro Pertini was the first socialist to be elected President of the Italian Republic. In 1983, Bettino Craxi became the first government under socialist leadership. In elections, the party was able to regularly unite around 10% of the vote, it achieved its best result in 1987 with 14.2%.

Social Democratic Party

The Partito Socialista Democratico Italiano (PSDI) split from the Socialists in 1947 in protest against the party's pro-Soviet course at the time. The Social Democrats were involved in numerous coalition governments led by the DC. In 1969 Giuseppe Saragat was elected 5th President of the Italian Republic. The PSDI was a small party: the best result in 1948 was 7.21%, after which it stagnated between 2.5% and 4%.

Liberal Party

The Partito Liberale Italiano (PLI) was founded in 1922. The party was banned under the fascist dictatorship and reconstituted in 1944. The co-founders include the philosopher Benedetto Croce and the first two Italian presidents, Enrico De Nicola and Luigi Einaudi .

The PLI was involved in many governments, but lost influence with the upheaval in the Italian party system due to widespread corruption in 1992/1993 and finally disbanded on February 6, 1994. The party achieved its best result in the 1963 parliamentary elections, when it achieved 7.0% of the vote.

Republican Party

The Partito Repubblicano Italiano (PRI) was created in 1895. Its ideological role models were Giuseppe Mazzini and Carlo Cattaneo (an Italian federalist from the 19th century). In contrast to the Partito Liberale Italiano, which represented economically liberal positions, the PRI was more center-left or socially liberal.

The PRI was involved in Italian governments several times and provided Giovanni Spadolini (1981–1982), the first non-Christian Democratic prime minister in Italy's post-war history.

The party achieved its best election result in 1983 with 5.1% of the vote.

Neo-fascist party

The Movimento Sociale Italiano (German: Italian Social Movement, abbreviated MSI) was founded on December 26, 1946 by supporters of the Repubblica Sociale Italiana (including Giorgio Almirante , Augusto De Marsanich and Pino Romualdi ). The party symbol was the flame in the Italian national colors ( fiamma tricolore ).

Excluded from the other parties, the MSI was never able to assume government responsibility. Except for the toleration of the short-lived Tambroni cabinet (March 25, 1960 to July 26, 1960), the neo-fascists could effectively be kept out of power.

The MSI election results were stable between 4% and 6%. The party achieved its best result after the merger with the monarchists in the parliamentary elections in 1972 (8.6% in the Chamber and 9.0% in the Senate). The MSI received the highest approval in the region around Rome (17.4%) and in southern Italy (26.3% in Naples).

Government wear and tear

Because there were in fact no threshold clauses, the parties were always dependent on coalitions and so there was a high level of government wear and tear in Italy. Depending on how you operationalize, there are 50–60 governments in the so-called 1st Republic (until 1994). Amazingly, however, there is great continuity in policy and staffing. Often, elected prime ministers were re-elected in the next election under minimally different coalition relationships. The long phase of government formation, during which the constitution gave the parties complete freedom while parliament as a whole was condemned to inaction, often led to results that only partially reflected the immediate election results, and these discrepancies contributed to the alienation of the citizens political parties and institutions.

The first change: disintegration of the old parties (1991–94)

Italy's party system in transition from 1992 to 1995

At the beginning of the 1990s , the Italian political party landscape underwent a profound change.

The end of the Cold War and the fall of the Berlin Wall accelerated the ideological change that the communists had begun in the 1970s. The majority of the PCI decided in 1991 to rename itself Partito Democratico della Sinistra (PDS; Democratic Left Party) - later shortened to Democratici di Sinistra (DS; Left Democrats) - and henceforth to appear social democratic. The minority who wanted to pursue the goal of communism formed the Partito della Rifondazione Comunista (PRC). Several splits led to a further fragmentation of the left spectrum into several small parties besides the DS.

In the area of ​​the other parties, too, a profound change took place during this time. The judicial investigations known under the name Mani pulite (literally translated as “clean hands”, meaning “white vest”) uncovered a network of corruption, abuse of office and illegal party financing on a political level in the early and mid-1990s. This particularly affected the longstanding governing parties Democrazia Cristiana (DC) and the Socialist Party (PSI, Partito Socialista Italiano ).

The investigation led to the collapse of the Democrazia Cristiana and the Partito Socialista Italiano as well as the remaining parties of the Pentapartito . The PSI became the Socialisti Italiani (SI), the PLI broke up into the Federazione dei Liberali (FDL) and the Unione di Centro (UdC), and the DC became the Cristiano Sociali , Centro Cristiano Democratico , Cristiani Democratici Uniti and Partito Popolare Italiano , with only the PPI being the official successor.

There were also later attempts to establish a new company, but these were generally unsuccessful; for the PSI: Nuovo Partito Socialista Italiano (2001), for the PSDI: Partito Socialista Democratico Italiano (2004), for the PLI: Partito Liberale Italiano (1997) and for the DC: Partito Popolare Progressista di Ispirazione Cristiana (1993), Nuova Democrazia Cristiana (1995), Unione Democratica per la Repubblica (1996), Rinascita della Democrazia Cristiana (1997), Cristiani Democrati per la Repubblica (1998), Partito Democratico Cristiano (2001), Democrazia Cristiana (2002), Democrazia Cristiana - Terzo Polo di Centro (2004), Rifondazione Democristiana (2006) and Democrazia Cristiana (2012).

The political developments led to a strengthening of separatist parties such as the Lega Nord and the emergence of the Forza Italia (FI) Silvio Berlusconi's party , which carried marketing methods from the private sector into party politics and started a vaguely right-wing populist program from the mid- 1990s as dominant force established in the center-right spectrum. Numerous politicians of the crumbling Democrazia Cristiana and PSI defected to the promising Forza Italia despite their ideological differences.

After the neo-fascist Movimento Sociale Italiano (MSI) lost importance in the 1980s and early 1990s, it joined an electoral alliance with Forza Italia and the Lega Nord in 1994 ( Polo delle Libertà ) and became the third largest party in the 1994 parliamentary elections . As part of the Berlusconi I cabinet , she was involved in government. At this time, the party began to change, which had its external climax in 1995 when the Fiuggi congress was reorganized into the Alleanza Nazionale . This distanced itself from fascism and tried to be perceived as a democratic right-wing conservative party. This led to the split of several parties that remained loyal to the legacy of fascism, e.g. B. Fronte Nazionale (1990), Movimento Fascismo e Libertà (1991), Lega d'Azione Meridionale (1992), Fiamma Tricolore (1995), Unitalia (1996), Forza Nuova (1997) and Fronte Sociale Nazionale (1997).

The Partito Radicale was renamed the Transnational Radical Party in 1989 and restructured itself as a transnational movement. In 1995 it was recognized by the United Nations as a non-governmental organization . (Eg. In accordance with the rules for NGOs, the TRP could not participate in elections, so they set out in the following elections under different names Antiproibizionisti sulla droga in the 1989 European elections and Lista Pannella in the parliamentary elections 1992 - 96 and in the European elections in 1994 ) .

Party landscape after 1994

After the disintegration of the old parties and the change in the electoral system from proportional representation without a blocking clause to a mixed suffrage (majority vote for 75% of the seats and proportional representation for 25% of the seats, as well as a blocking clause for 4% for the proportional share), a new one was formed Party landscape. The two largest parties were Forza Italia and the Partito Democratico della Sinistra (later renamed Democratici di Sinistra ).

Forza Italia , the new party founded by Silvio Berlusconi, was not a traditional membership party. Unlike many historically grown parties, it was not preceded by a social movement. Rather, Berlusconi founded and established his party through the media. Over time, of course, classic structures (local associations, etc.) had also formed at Forza Italia and the number of members also increased.

Lega Nord was created in 1989 from the merger of Alleanza Toscana , Liga Veneta , Lega Autonomista Lombarda , Piedmont Autonomista , Uniun Ligure and Lega Emiliano-Romagnola . In the early 1990s was the Lega Nord during the destruction of the political system of the first Italian Republic as a result of Mani pulite -Ermittlungen in northern Italy for the mass party .

After the change in electoral law, the parties had to change their alliance strategies. In order to emerge as winners in the constituencies elected by majority vote (first-past-the-post system), they joined together to form party blocs. These consisted of numerous parties that agreed to put up only one candidate in the selected electoral districts. The dominant blocks were L'Ulivo and L'Unione (center-left) and Polo and Casa delle Libertà (center-right).

In 1994, the center-right bloc ( Casa delle Libertà , or at that time Polo delle Libertà and Polo del Buongoverno) won the election, the government only lasted for a year due to internal differences. This was followed by a center-left government of the Ulivo alliance, which was replaced by the center-right bloc in 2001.

Despite the election victory, it was difficult to hold a bloc and a government together. There were regular clashes among the numerous coalition partners.

As it turned out, the typical bipolarity of majority voting had prevailed in the party landscape, even if there were not two parties (as in Great Britain), but two blocs. However, it should be noted that the mixed suffrage from 1993 failed to achieve the goal of combating party fragmentation, on the contrary: after 1994 there were significantly more parties in parliament than ever before. This can be explained by the fact that even small splinter parties within the two blocs had secure constituencies assured in order not to tip the scales with their own candidates .

The bipolarization also led to a verbal radicalization and a brutalization of political behavior, which was not to be found even during the Cold War.

The new electoral law introduced in 2005 and first applied in 2006, which again provides for a mixed system of majority and proportional representation, promotes electoral alliances. The desire to become real parties has grown in these for some time. You could roughly compare the development with that of France's UDF in the 1980s .

Here is an overview of the 2005 suffrage:

Majority proportional system
In principle, the parties get as many parliamentary seats as they are entitled to according to their share of the vote (corresponds to proportional representation). The new law also provides a "bonus" for the election winner in order to get clearer majorities in parliament, which means that the winner has a majority of at least 340 seats in any case. If a party or coalition of parties has won at least 340 seats on its own, which corresponds to approx. 55%, the majority bonus will of course not be awarded. It only takes effect if a party or coalition only has a relative majority; because then that victorious party or coalition is automatically credited with the difference between the seats actually won and the 340 seats (corresponding to 55%). (The remaining 277 seats are allocated according to the system of the whole number of elections and the highest remainder.) This regulation applies to both the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate. This means that a majority vote for the bonus takes place at the level of the competing alliances: the alliance that gets only one vote more than the second strongest alliance clears the entire majority bonus (winner-takes-it-all principle as with the British Majority vote in the constituencies).
Percentage clauses and alliance systems
A distinction must be made here between how the parties stand up for election, whether as “lone fighters” or as part of an alliance. When electing to the Chamber of Deputies, three hurdles must be observed: If a party stands alone and without an alliance partner, a threshold clause of 4 percent of the nationwide votes applies. If it is part of a coalition, a hurdle of only 2 percent applies to it, but the coalition as a whole must also reach at least 10%. A coalition is therefore only taken into account in the allocation of seats if it overcomes this 10 percent hurdle and if at the same time at least one party that is united in it achieves more than 2 percent. The 2 percent hurdle applies again within the coalition. In addition, the “best loser”, ie the party that was excluded with the most votes, also receives its share of the seat. Parties that belong to a coalition that does not meet the percentage clauses that apply to them are considered to be non-aligned parties and again fall below the 4 percent threshold. Alternatively, there is a regional 20 percent hurdle in Trentino-South Tyrol . In the Aosta Valley, a member of parliament is still elected by majority voting.
The same rules apply to the election to the Senate, with differences in the percentages: The hurdles are twice as high: 8% apply for parties without an alliance, 3% for parties within a coalition and at least 20% for a coalition to be considered become. In contrast to the elections to the Chamber of Deputies, the elections to the Senate do not take place at the national level, but at the regional level. Because of the different "political tones" of the regions, it is possible that a different coalition will receive a majority in the Senate than the one that received a clear majority in the Chamber of Deputies through the bonus. That could make governing much more difficult, as laws have to be passed by both chambers of parliament before they can be signed by the president.
The prerequisite for a coalition to be recognized as such is a joint election platform and a joint top candidate for the office of Prime Minister. In practice, however, this alliance is always of a pragmatic nature, so that, for example, the common election program is more of a necessity than a serious common line.

In the Aosta Valley (one constituency) and in Trentino-Alto Adige (six constituencies and seven senators), the old majority voting system will continue to be used.

Italian expatriate
Until now, Italian citizens living abroad (approx. 3.5 million) could only take part in elections if they appeared to vote in the municipality in which they were entered in the electoral roll or in the register of Italians living abroad. Now a separate constituency called “Abroad” has been set up for them, in which 12 of the 630 MPs and 6 of the 315 Senators are elected (“Reserved Mandates”).

Overview: important parties from 1994 to 2008

Middle left

See also: Alleanza dei Progressisti , L'Ulivo , L'Unione

Middle right

See also: Casa delle Libertà , Polo delle Libertà , Polo per le Libertà

Wavering

The second change: Consolidation of the party landscape around 2008

In the run-up to the parliamentary elections in 2008 , there was a strong consolidation of the party landscape from 2007 onwards.

The left-wing democrats, La Margherita (Christian-Social), as well as seven other liberal, Christian-social and green parties of the center-left spectrum united to form the Partito Democratico ("Democratic Party"). In response, the two leading right-wing parties, Berlusconi's Forza Italia and the Alleanza Nazionale, merged in 2009 to form the Popolo della Libertà (PdL "People of Freedom").

In the 2008 election, the two large rallying parties PdL (center-right; at that time not yet as a single party, but as a joint list) and PD (center-left) together won over 70% of the seats.

In addition to these parties, only three smaller parties were represented in parliamentary groups: Lega Nord (ally of the PdL), Italia dei Valori (ally of the PD) and UDC (stood alone). There were also individual MPs from regional parties and Italians living abroad. In contrast, the joint list of the left and green parties La Sinistra - L'Arcobaleno ("The Left - The Rainbow") missed out on parliament with 3.1% (two years earlier, the parties involved had together received over 10%). As a result, for the first time since 1945, there were no Communists in parliament.

Appearance of a new protest movement and third change (since 2013)

In the run-up to the parliamentary elections in 2013 , the protest movement Movimento 5 Stelle by Beppe Grillo gained strength and moved into the Italian parliament as a new opposition party. Just ahead of the previous major parties PD and PdL, which both lost significantly, it even became the strongest party, but had no coalition options. As the fourth strongest party, the Scelta Civica (“bourgeois election”) succeeded in entering parliament, which, as a pragmatic force in the middle , wanted to continue the reform program of the financial expert and former interim premier Mario Monti . The Christian Democratic UDC sagged to a small party, the left-wing parties again failed to enter parliament. PD, PdL and Scelta Civica agreed to form a "grand coalition", which was the first time since 1994 that the division into a center-left and a center-right block was abolished. However, the PdL split a few months later: The majority wing of Berlusconi supporters again took the name Forza Italia and left the government, while the Nuovo Centrodestra ("New Right Center") continued the coalition with the PD. The latter experienced a temporary soaring, which placed it in the 2014 European elections with over 40% far ahead of all other parties.

The 2018 parliamentary elections brought down the established parties and a triumph for the protest parties. Both the PD and Forza Italia (which, ironically, was founded as a protest party in 1994, but has since been perceived as an old party) suffered significant losses again: The two parties PD and PdL (predecessor of the FI) had in the 2008 election Still dominating the political landscape with a total of 70%, they did not even get a third of the votes in total. Forza Italia also lost its leadership role in the center-right spectrum to Lega Nord , with only 14% of the vote . This no longer appeared as a northern Italian regional party, but as a right-wing populist and nationalist party for all of Italy, and consequently only called itself "Lega". This enabled her to quadruple her share of the vote. The strongest force was again the five-star movement, which clearly exceeded its already surprisingly strong result from 2013. Despite major ideological differences, Lega and Five Stars formed a coalition that called itself the “government of change”, but was often referred to in the press as the “coalition of populists”. The two (formerly) large parties of the center-left and the center-right, which (with their respective predecessor parties) had dominated the political system since 1994, had to go into opposition.

Important parties of the present

Middle left
  • Partito Democratico (PD) - collecting party of the center-left spectrum with social-democratic, Christian-social and social-liberal elements
  • Alternativea Popolare (AP) - Christian Democratic split from Forza Italia, which supported the center-left government after 2013
  • Radicali Italiani (RI) - radical-liberal small party
Middle right
  • Forza Italia (FI) - a gathering party focused on the person of Silvio Berlusconi with populist, liberal and conservative elements, lost its leadership role in the center-right block in 2018
  • Lega Nord - changed in the 2010s from a northern Italian regional party to a nationwide right-wing populist party and leading party of the center-right spectrum, since then it has only appeared as the "Lega"
  • Fratelli d'Italia (FdI) - national conservative and right-wing populist successor party to the Alleanza Nazionale
  • Unione di Centro (UDC) - Christian Democratic, split several times since 2013 and lost importance
  • Scelta Civica (SC) - founded in 2013 by supporters of the interim premier Mario Monti as a reform party of the center, has split several times since then and has lost much of its importance
Left
No coalition
Important regional parties

See also

literature

  • Elisabeth Fix: Italy's party system in transition. From the first to the second republic. Campus, Frankfurt a. M. 1999.
  • Damian Grasmück: The "Forza Italia" Silvio Berlusconi. Birth, development, government activity and structures of a charismatic party . Peter Lang Verlag, Frankfurt am Main et al. 2005, ISBN 3-631-53839-1 ( Italy in the past and present 22), (at the same time: Bonn, Univ., Diss., 2004).
  • Stefan Köppl: The political system of Italy. An introduction . VS-Verlag, Wiesbaden 2007, ISBN 978-3-531-14068-1 .
  • Franz Lehner, Ulrich Widmaier : Comparative Government . 4th revised edition. Leske + Budrich, Opladen 2002, ISBN 3-8100-3199-2 ( Basic knowledge of politics 4).
  • Peter Weber: The new era of Italian majority democracy. Questionable stability with continued party fragmentation . In: Journal for Parliamentary Issues (ZParl) . 28, 1, 1997, ISSN  0340-1758 , pp. 85-116.
  • Peter Weber: Coalitions in Italy. Frenetic fighting in the network of party interests . In: Sabine Kropp , Suzanne S. Schüttemeyer, Roland Sturm (eds.): Coalitions in Western and Eastern Europe . Leske + Budrich, Opladen 2002, ISBN 3-8100-3176-3 , pp. 167-196.