Italy PIERO IGNAZI. European Journal of Political Research 41: , Università degli Studi di Bologna, Italy

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1 992 European Journal of Political Research 41: , 2002 Italy PIERO IGNAZI Università degli Studi di Bologna, Italy The most salient political event of the year 2001 was the General Election held on 13 May. The long-awaited contest matched the forecast of the survey polls. The centre-right coalition (the House of Freedom ) won an ample majority in both Houses: 351 out of 616 Members voted confidence in the government in the Chamber of Deputies, as did 175 out of 315 in the Senate kicking back into opposition the former governmental coalition gathered under the Olive Tree alliance. The centre-right coalition was made up of Forza Italia, Alleanza nazionale, Lega nord and the minor Catholic parties CCD and CDU. In a way, it reconstituted the coalition that won in 1994: this was the necessary tool for gaining the majority of seats. In fact, the centre-right had won even more votes than the centre-left in the 1996 General Election, but on that occasion the centreright was defeated because of its inner divisions. When the centre-right contested the election once again united, it profited from its relative majority of voters to get an absolute majority of seats. On the other hand, the Olive Tree coalition failed both to renew the 1996 electoral alliance with the hard-line leftist Rifondazione Comunista and to reach an agreement with the new Lista Di Pietro launched by the former, well-known, Clean Hands prosecutor. While Rifondazione barely overcame the 4 per cent hurdle to obtain parliamentary representation, the Lista Di Pietro reached only 3.9 per cent, wasting all its votes. The campaign was basically centred on the conflict between the two competing leaders, Silvio Berlusconi for the House of Freedom and Francesco Rutelli for the Olive Tree. Berlusconi failed to accept any direct confrontation because of the too evident gap of image Rutelli being younger, taller, more handsome, and also more hairy (one of the vulnerabilities in Berlusconi s selfimage) and in an attempt to delegitimise Rutelli as effective leader of the centre-left coalition. During the electoral campaign, Berlusconi profited from greater attention in the media, both in the state-controlled RAI and even more in his own broadcasting company Mediaset. According to the monitoring of the Pavia Observatory, Berlusconi had 465 minutes against 441 for Rutelli on Published by Blackwell Publishers, 108 Cowley Road, Oxford, OX4 1JF and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA

2 italy 993 RAI, and 1,427 against 887 on Mediaset. If one considers that centre-right voters are more sensitive to media messages than are the Olive Tree voters (28.5 per cent as opposed to 13.1 per cent reported that the leader s image was of utmost importance when considering their voting intention), the conquest of more room in the television networks became quite important. In fact, television played a prominent role during the campaign, especially in the presentation of a very venomous attack against Berlusconi by a journalist in a satirical talk show as well as in the ironic, and amusing, brief sketch by the well-known comic Roberto Benigni interviewed by the dean of the Italian journalists. As both events occurred on state-owned RAI, they provoked an outraged reaction by the centre-right. While the general result of the election provided the centre-right with a sizeable majority, its interpretation should be somewhat nuanced. First, the centre-right did not win a landslide victory. Instead of breaking through, it retrenched, when compared to 1996, in terms of vote percentages both in the proportional representation (PR) list as well as in the plurality list. The same parties that had formed the House of Freedom in the 2001 election, won 51.1 per cent in the plurality list and 52.2 per cent in the PR list in the 1996 election. In 2001, they went down to 45.6 per cent and 45.4 per cent, respectively a decrease of 5.7 per cent and 2.6 per cent, respectively. Second, while the centre-right won by more than three million votes 49.6 per cent (Casa delle libertà) against 40.6 per cent (Ulivo + Rifondazione) in the PR list for the Chamber of Deputies, the difference between the two fronts was decisively smaller in the plurality list (45.4 per cent versus 44.3 per cent). The data for the Senate are even more striking, with the relative strengths inverted Ulivo + Rifondazione exceeded the centre-right: 44.3 per cent versus 42.9 per cent. However, the divisions within the centre-left proved fatal in term of seats allocation: 176 to the House of Freedom as against 134 for the Olive Tree and Communist Refoundation. Third, only two parties of the centre-right won direct parliamentary representation through the PR list, as the CCD/CDU and, above all, the Northern League failed to surpass the threshold. The Lega attained only 3.9 per cent (-6.2 per cent), which proved very dramatic because it highlighted the difficulties of Bossi s party vis-à-vis Berlusconi s Forza Italia which absorbed almost all of its former votes. The Lega seats became unnecessary for the government majority, but Bossi was still determined to play and the Lega actually played a crucial role during the second half of the year, mainly thanks to Bossi s special relationship with the powerful Forza Italia Minister of the Economy, Giulio Tremonti. Fourth, Alleanza Nazionale also fell back compared to 1996 (-3.7 per cent), paving the way toward a hegemonic role for Forza Italia, which almost tripled its score with an impressive 29.5 per cent.

3 Table 1. Election to the Camera dei Deputati (Chamber of Deputies) Date of election: 13 May 2001 Total number of seats: 630 Electorate*: 49,362,432 Total votes cast*: 40,085,397 (81.2 per cent) Valid votes cast*: 37,122,776 Percentage PR vote PR Plurality Number 1 Percentage change Party (percentage) seats seats of seats of seats since 1996 Forza Italia Go Italy! (FI) 10,923,146 (5) Alleanza Nazionale National Alliance (AN) 4,459,397 (12.0) Centro Cristiano Democratico Christian Democratic 1,193,643 (3.2) Centre (CCD)/Cristiani Democratici Uniti United Christian Democrats (CDU) Lega Nord North League (LN) 1,461,854 (3.9) Nuovo PSI New PSI 352,853 (1.0) Democratici di Sinistra Left Democrats (DS) 6,147,624 (16.6) Verdi + Socialisti Democratici Italiani Greens + 804,488 (2.2) Italian Democrat Socialists La Margherita The Daisy 5,386,950 (14.5) Partito dei Comunisti Italiani Party of the Italian 619,912 (1.7) n.c. Communists (PdCI) Rifondazione Comunista Communist 1,868,113 (5.0) Refoundation (RC) 994 piero ignazi

4 Sudtiroler Volkspartei South Tyrol Popular Party 200,056 (0.5) n.c. (SVP) Lista Valle d Aosta 3 Aosta Valley List n.c. Lista Di Pietro Di Pietro List 1,443,271 (3.9) Democrazia Europea European Democracy (DE) 887,037 (2.4) Lista Pannella-Bonino Pannella-Bonino List 831,199 (2.2) Movimento Sociale-Fiamma Tricolore Social 142,894 (0.4) Movement-Tricolour Flame (MS-FT) Liga-Fronte Veneto Venetian League 74,288 (0.2) Partito dei Pensionati Pensioner Party 68,242 (0.2) Partito Sardo d Azione Sardinian Action Party 34,345 (0.1) Lega Meridionale Southern League 23,812 (0.1) Others 177,501 (0.5) * Proportional representation (PR) part. 1 The total number of seats allotted is 616 instead of 630 because 14 seats in the plurality part have not yet been assigned. The reason lies in the different interpretations regarding the distribution of seats when a list does not have enough candidates to fill all the seats gained in that constituency in the plurality part. This inconvenience occurred especially to the Freedom House coalition which adopted unscrupulously the owl-lists (liste civette) in order to downsize the effect of the scorporo i.e., the deduction of votes in the PR part because of the (large) victory by the same list in the plurality part. A final decision has not yet come. As a consequence, the difference in the percentage of seats between 1996 and 2001 should take into account the fact that the total number of seats in the two parliaments is different: 630 in 1996 and 616 in The Daisy consisted of the PPI, the Democrats, Italian Renewal and UDEUR. The difference in seats vis-à-vis 1996 is calculated with the sum of the former parties at the beginning of the XIII legislature. 3 The List Aosta Valley contested the XXVII constituency only, receiving 25,573 votes (35.0 per cent in the constituency, 0.1 per cent at the national level) and gaining one seat. n.c. = no change. italy 995

5 996 piero ignazi Table 2. Cabinet composition For composition of Amato II on 1 January 2001, see Political Data Yearbook 2000: A. The party composition of Berlusconi II: Date of investiture: 11 June 2001 Vote of confidence: 20 June 2001 (Senate) 21 June 2001 (Chamber of Deputes) Number of Percentage of Number of Percentage of government government seats seats positions positions FI AN LN CCD-CDU Independents 5 20 Total B. Cabinet members of Berlusconi II: Prime Minister/Presidente del Consiglio dei Ministri: Silvio Berlusconi (1936 male, FI) Vice-Prime Minister/Vice-Presidente del Consiglio dei Ministri: Gianfranco Fini (1952 male, AN) Interior/Interni: Claudio Scajola (1948 male, FI) Foreign Affairs/Affari esteri: Renato Ruggiero ([year of birth not known] male, Independent) Economy & Finance/Economia e Finanza: Giulio Tremonti (1947 male, FI) Production Activities/Attività Produttive: Antonio Marzano (1935 male, FI) Defence/Difesa: Antonio Martino (1942 male, FI) Justice/Giustizia: Roberto Castelli (1946 male, LN) Labour & Social Policies/Lavoro e Politiche Sociali: Roberto Maroni (1955 male, LN) Infrastructure & Transport /Infrastrutture e Trasporti: Pietro Lunardi (1939 male, Independent) Health/Salute: Girolamo Sirchia (1933 male, Independent) Education, University & Scientific Research/Istruzione, Università e Ricerca scientifica: Letizia Moratti (1949 female, Independent) Agricultural Policies/Politiche agricole: Giovanni Alemanno (1958 male, AN) Environment/Ambiente: Altero Matteoli (1940 male, AN) Cultural Resources/Beni culturali: Giuliano Urbani (1937 male, FI) Communications/Comunicazioni: Maurizio Gasparri (1956 male, AN) Ministers without portfolio: Government Programme Achievement/Attuazione del Programma di Governo: Giuseppe Pisanu (1937 male, FI) Public Administration/Funzione Pubblica: Franco Frattini (1957 male, FI) European Economic Community Policies/Politiche Comunitarie: Rocco Buttiglione (1948 male CCD-CDU) Innovation & Technologies/Innovazione e Tecnologie: Lucio Stanca (1941 male, Independent) Institutional Reforms & Devolution/Riforme Istituzionali e Devoluzione: Umberto Bossi (1941 male, LN) Regional Affairs/Affari Regionali: Enrico La Loggia (1947 male, FI) Equal Opportunity/Pari Opportunità: Stefania Prestigiacomo (1966 female, FI) Relationship with Parliament/Relazioni con il Parlamento: Carlo Giovanardi (1950 male, CCD-CDU) Italians in the World/Italiani nel Mondo: Mirko Tremaglia (1926 male, AN)

6 italy 997 On the other side of the political spectrum, the balance of power within the centre-left altered dramatically. The DS (under the name of PDS ) was considerably larger than its second competitor in the 1996 elections: 21.1 per cent as against 6.8 per cent. The 2001 outcome displayed a rather different landscape: the DS, while still occupying the first position with 16.6 per cent (-4.5 per cent), was almost reached by the new Daisy Alliance, composed of the Catholic PPI, Prodi s Democrats and other minor centrist components, which attained 14.5 per cent. This unexpected performance may be connected to identification of the Daisy Alliance with Rutelli, as it bore the name of Rutelli in its symbol. Finally, the Social Democrats (SDI) and the Greens, which competed with a single list and symbol (another flower: the Sunflower), were penalised as they gained 2.2 per cent of the votes, less than half of their 1996 share. The third forces that refused any alliance with either the centre-right or the centre-left all failed. The Lista Di Pietro, the Radicals and the Catholic Democrazia Europea (European Democracy), under the aegis of the former Catholic trade union (Cisl) leader Sergio D Antoni and the long-time DC leader Giulio Andreotti, did not overcome the 4 per cent threshold. Only the Communist Refoundation reached 5 per cent, while losing almost half of its votes. In sum, the party system that emerged from the election remained quite fragmented. Even if only five parties/lists got more than 4 per cent in the PR list, thanks to agreements in the plurality list, the number of parties represented in parliament was more than double that number (13). The total volatility remained quite high (20.1 per cent), mainly thanks to the variation in the political supply. On the other hand, the tendency toward a majoritarian dynamics had increased, with almost no room for third parties and two quite well-defined adversary blocs. Issues in national politics The first half of the year was almost entirely devoted to the electoral campaign. The government took only one significant initiative: the constitutional reform of the power relationship between the central and the local governments. In an attempt to deprive the opposition of one of its most salient issues, the federal transformation of the state, the Amato Government passed a constitutional reform that provided more power to the regional and other local authorities. As this constitutional amendment, because of the opposition by the centre-right, did not meet the requirement of two-thirds of the votes in both Chambers to pass immediately, the government called for a confirmatory

7 998 piero ignazi referendum. When the referendum was held on 7 October, the centre-right de-emphasised the contest as much as it could. However, the participation rate was not negligible (34 per cent) and the voters massively supported the reform (64.2 per cent) which was also backed by some centre-right regional presidents. After the election, three topics dominated the political landscape for the rest of year: the government bills in conflict with the magistrates activity and concerning Berlusconi s personal interests; the unusual mobilisation of civil society; and the second DS national conference. The reshuffling of social movements in the shape of an anti-global mobilisation had two prominent moments: the demonstrations in Naples in March, and especially those in Genoa in July during the G8 summit. These two events had completely different outcomes notwithstanding some similarities in that there were violent clashes between demonstrators and the police, the harshest in decades, first in Naples and even more so in Genoa. The difference consists in the number of participants (no more than 30,000 in Naples as opposed to almost 300,000 in Genoa) and in the amount of media attention, given the scope of the two meetings. Therefore, while the media underscored the violent clashes and the brutality perpetrated by the police against the demonstrators in Naples in particular the police detained those who had been hospitalised after the street confrontation the same day and took them to the police headquarters for very tough questioning. The same kind of behaviour, aggravated by the death of a demonstrator (the first since 1977), the number of the people involved and the even more appalling brutality by the police in their headquarters, had an enormous impact in Genoa. After some hesitation in the attempt to downplay the events, the government removed all the chiefs of the police involved, except the most senior chief. The results of the Genoa rally were threefold. First, the rally demonstrated the mobilisation potential of the Italian civil society even beyond the, quite amazing, attractiveness of the anti-global network. To attract the involvement of almost 300,000 people without the overt support of the major leftist political and trade union organisations was quite exceptional in the Italian context. Second, it demonstrated the uncertainties of the DS, which oscillated between adhesion and non-involvement, finally opting for the latter. Third, it reintroduced, after the early years of the 1970s, a very deep and historically loaded cleavage between the police and grass-roots leftists. The negative impact on the government of the mismanagement of the events of the G8 Summit protest was overcome by the events of 11 September. On that occasion, the government received almost unanimous support for its policy. Even the decision to back militarily the Enduring Freedom operation passed in Parliament with only 35 votes against (Rifondazione plus some

8 italy 999 left-wing and Catholic Members of Parliament). However, the mass mobilisation of the anti-global movement continued, albeit reframed, even during the Autumn. The traditional Perugia-Assisi peace march organised yearly in October since the 1960s with a large presence of the Catholic constituency was very successful with more than 200,000 people participating. The second salient topic in the first months concerned the government s adoption of a series of bills that interfered with the magistrates ongoing activity vis-à-vis Prime Minister Berlusconi himself. These included a reduction in the penalties for frauds committed by companies and the introduction of a higher barrier for cooperation with international investigations or orders for the production of documents. Other bills raised the problem of Berlusconi s conflicts of interest, such the elimination of the death/estate duty and of the tax on donations and the proposed reform of the broadcasting system. The debate over the conflicts of interest, which was raised especially by the international press, did not, however, find a receptive audience in Italy. Not surprisingly, the proposed reform by the government, which did not change anything at all, also did not find a vivid opposition. The third crucial event was the long-awaited second congress of the Left Democrats (Democratici di Sinistra DS) on November. The general secretary, Walter Veltroni, had resigned in the Spring because of his intention to compete for the mayorship of Rome left vacant by the Olive Tree leader, Francesco Rutelli, in his competition for the national premiership. The DS did not immediately replace Veltroni, but elected a coordinator, Piero Fassino, who would run the party until the congress. Because of the international crisis, the congress was postponed until November. The internal debate had a bizarre outcome. In response to the reformist line of the coordinator, backed by the former leader and prime minister Massimo D Alema, a novel and heterogenous coalition was formed, led by Giovanni Berlinguer, elder brother of the famous and successful PCI secretary of the 1970s and mid-1980s, Enrico Berlinguer. This coalition was motivated by and gathered supporters from among those discontented with D Alema s overarching presence rather than with the reformist line, even if it advocated a more militant and antagonist attitude. However, Fassino was elected with a strong majority. The new party secretary, a former young communist of the same generation as D Alema, Veltroni and others, received a favourable reception among the public for his cool, problem-solving attitude even though he quite clearly lacked any charisma. However, with a party confronted with a dramatic electoral crisis, this lack of charisma may further darken the party s future. In fact, at the same time, the DS s internal competitor in the centre-left, the electoral alliance of the Daisy (Margherita) initiated the process of federation to establish a single party.

9 1000 piero ignazi Institutional change The Constitutional Law No , approved in the referendum on 7 October 2001, has modified Title V of the Constitution, providing more autonomy to local governments.