Italian Politics After The 2013 Election

Luca Bader, CEO of the Institute of European Democrats in Brussels and an Honorary Research Fellow at La Trobe University’s Centre for Dialogue. On Monday 22 April 2013, at The Sydney Institute, he joined Giulia Massotti is a project manager with the Institute of European Democrats, a research institute established in 2007 and based in Brussels in a discussion on the 2013 elections in Italy and the aftermath. 

ITALIAN POLITICS AFTER THE 2013 ELECTION

LUCA BADER

 It is an honor for me to speak at such a prestigious Institute, and to discuss with you the outcomes of the last general election in Italy and the prospects for Italian politics.

Please let me start by saying that I feel a bit guilty because when I met with Gerard Henderson in Rome a few weeks before the election, I gave him assurances of a clear result on February 24/25, stating: “The Democratic Party is going to win big, with majority on its own or a coalition with the centrist party led by outgoing PM Mario Monti. Easy”.

As you know, things didn’t quite turn out that way, so I am here also to make up for that.

I want to start by saying that the outcome of this election, and indeed Italian politics more generally, is still a work in progress; there is still no end to this story. We are in a stalemate, so I can’t say anything conclusive about it, unfortunately.

However, the election – the re-election – of Giorgio Napolitano as President of the Republic last Saturday is probably a decisive step in finding a way out of the cul de sac in which both the complicated numbers in the newly-elected Parliament, and a confused strategy pursued by the Democratic Party (PD) had pushed the country in.

The re-election of Giorgio Napolitano as President of the Republic is an historic event for several reasons. Most importantly, it is the first time in the history of the Italian Republic that a President has been re-elected for a second term. Nonetheless, it does not represent a sign of strength of the system, but indeed of its extreme weakness. Weakness of the political parties, mostly, and weakness of their leadership, campaigning, communication, shape and structure out of touch.

This re-election proves that the Italian political system is changing, at least temporarily, shifting from a Parliamentary to a Presidential republic. The powers of the Head of State, as a guarantor of the Constitution and national unity, after having remained largely ceremonial for decades, are becoming those of the real power broker of Italian politics. It happened when, under the external political and financial pressures, Giorgio Napolitano pushed Silvio Berlusconi to resign as Prime Minister in November 2011. It happened when he appointed Mario Monti as Prime Minister of a technocratic government; and it is happening now: the political parties were unable to form a coalition supporting a prime minister nor to elect new President of the Republic, and to show that the phase of technocracy, grand coalition in times of crisis was over.

Hence, this is the rationale behind this re-election of Giorgio Napolitano on Saturday: since the political parties were unable to form a coherent majority, and they were not even able to convince their own voters of the need to form a grand coalition (as it would have meant an agreement between adversary competitors), they entrusted the President of the Republic hoping that he would have taken this burden on himself.

The President is emerging as a giant in a field of weakened, confused, self-destructive political parties.

The question arises as to how did we get to this point?

The parliamentary elections that called 50 million Italians to the polls on 24-25 February 2013 have been at the centre of the attention of governments, media, and economic institutions, in Europe and beyond. They were seen as an important step in the resolution of the Eurozone crisis and even an important step contributing to the end of this crisis. Brussels and all European capitals predicted, and indeed endorsed, the success of both the PD, led by Pierluigi Bersani, and Scelta Civica led by Mario Monti, and their joint coalition government pursuing the agenda of economic and social reforms, moderately pro-austerity and pro-markets, strongly pro-European.

And this was also the scenario predicted by the polls. Still few hours before the elections, polls gave the PD 35 per cent of the overall vote, Monti’s coalition 12 per cent, Berlusconi’s coalition 25 per cent, and the new, anti-system, populist movement led by comedian Beppe Grillo, the 5Star Movement, 18 per cent. Following the Italian electoral law based on a proportional system with the threshold at 4 per cent and a majority bonus at national level for the House (55 per cent) and at the regional for the Senate, a different result was expected in the two branches of the parliament: the PD winning the majority of seats in the lower House and securing the majority of seats in the Senate with those gained by Monti’s coalition. With these numbers, a Bersani Government with Monti as speaker of the Senate or even President of the Republic, was on the cards. Such a scenario would have also meant, as a consequence, the end of the Berlusconi era, his dominance of Italian politics over 20 years.

A few hours later, the real results came as a shock for all: political leaders, media, analysts, and public. The coalition formed by the PD and its minor ally SEL got 29.6 per cent, Berlusconi’s coalition 19.2 per cent, 5Stars Movement 26 per cent, Monti’s coalition 10.5 per cent and the extreme left 2 per cent.

These unexpected results, translated into seats, meant that while in the House the PD gained a full majority obtained, thanks to the bonus won for the mere 0.4 per cent advantage over Berlusconi, in the Senate the joint seats gained by the PD and Monti’s Scelta Civica made any majority impossible, with these two parties running short of 20 senators and facing unexpectedly more than 80 5Stars Movement senators.

The 2013 Italian political elections were without any doubt elections of change. Since the previous elections in 2008, when Berlusconi won with over 40 per cent and PD got a strong 33.5 per cent, over the past 5 years 40 per cent of voters had changed their vote. In comparison to the previous figures, these electoral results were a double defeat for both the left and the right, with the PD losing 3.5 million votes and Berlusconi 6 million. And, above all, Grillo took 8.5 million votes, clearly drawing from left, right, and from voters that had abstained in the past.

These results led to a tri-party system, in which the three components have roughly equivalent numbers and are politically incompatible the ones with the others.

The question which arises is where are we now?

At a first glance, after the February election it could be perceived as if nothing happened. And this would be true, at least as for the facade: two months after, Monti’s technocratic government is still in charge, as it is for the newly re-elected President of the Republic; no lasting government can be foreseen; the Parliament has not produced a single piece of legislation yet. Then, it would seem that the election has been useless, and has worsened to the democratic deficit perceived by disillusioned Italian voters.

And yet, in my opinion, this election has actually brought some deep transformations for the Italian political and party system, for the underground trends in the society and this phenomenon will be replicated in other elections across Europe. In Rome, the political landscape has already changed as the outcome of the vote has mostly demolished the old system, although it has not been replaced with new one. It was a transitional election.

To better comprehend the outcome of the elections, it is fundamental to illustrate its background and major players:

The road leading to these elections has its starting point in the abovementioned 2008 elections. From 2008 to 2011 Berlusconi was the Prime Minister of a government supported by ample majority comprehending his party (PDL) and the Lega Nord, whilst at the opposition the PD was still coming to the terms with its defeat, change of leadership and the difficulty to merge the different political cultures inherited by its founding political parties.

The mood changed in 2010, when personal scandals reached a new record for Berlusconi, and the financial crisis started to hit the country. Berlusconi’s approval rates started to decline steeply, and, by the end of the year, all polls agreed that the PD had overtaken the PDL-Lega coalition. The PDL also suffered a split of a centrist wing, accelerating the perception of an imminent demise of the party.

Indeed, 2011 was an agony for PM Berlusconi: the scandals on the one hand and the economic trends on the other eroded his image also among his voters. In Italy, the financial crisis had turn into a real economic crisis, with extraordinary unemployment rates and remarkable GDP decline. Fear and negativity gripped the Italian public, and Berlusconi proved to be unable to tackle it. The Berlusconi dream of richness for all, of low taxes, his own myth of self made successful man – a myth Italians enthusiastically embraced during the booming 1990s – was inadequate, and even counter-productive in times of crisis. As a result, his electorate started to perceived Berlusconi as being interested only in hiding his personal scandals and, also, as not being able to handle the economic crisis.

In mid 2011, the international pressure of the financial markets and the risk of national default reached their point of crisis. After few months in which Berlusconi managed to stay in Government, by relying on his Parliamentary majority, eventually he was forced to resign under the pressure of President Napolitano in November 2011.

In mid-November, former EU Commissioner and Dean of Bocconi University Mario Monti was nominated Prime Minister of a purely technocratic government with not a single politician among its ministers. The Monti Government briefly set up and started to implement its agenda characterized by strong austerity policies, cuts to the national budget, cuts to funds for local governments, pensions reform, labor reform, re-organization of the bureaucracy, and introduction of a property tax on the first home.

These policies, supported and praised by the EU, improved the country’s budget and position on financial markets, but deepened the economic, industrial and social crisis. The negative economic performance and its social drawbacks were revealed by all economic indicators, showing rising record unemployment rate and worsening youth unemployment, deepening regional imbalances, and slowing down retail.

Anger, protest, disillusion, and growing inequalities: suddenly these elements were the common feeling on the street. Notwithstanding, during the electoral campaign, progressive leaders and main commentators undervalued them and, in the end, they deeply affected the election outcome.

After having briefly illustrated the background of the election, I’ll now turn to the main competing players: the PD; PDL; Lega Nord; Scelta Civica; UDC; M5S.

PD: The Partito Democratico had its roots in the coalition named L’Ulivo, formed back in 1996. From this coalition, in 2008, it was established the Partito Democratico as a new party resulting from the merger of former communist, social democratic, and progressive catholic (allied) parties. Notwithstanding the good performance in 2008 elections, the PD was defeated by Berlusconi’s coalition. The party was established with a majoritarian vocation, as a centre-left party embodying the whole political spectrum from the centre to the left, and it was initially shaped more as an “idea-party” than a “machine-party”, in a breakaway from communist and socialist tradition of the centralized party. After having been elected secretary through open primaries held in 2009, Pierluigi Bersani had turned the PD structure into a traditional social democratic party, stronger in organization, clearly defined politically, but smaller in terms of outreach. For many commentators, this was a fatal mistake.

In November 2012, Bersani was reconfirmed as leader and as Prime Minister candidate, through open primary elections (by then used as a custom rule to elect national and local leadership and to open up the party) with the impressive turnout of 4 million voters. In the aftermath of the primaries, the PD was at the peak. It held huge coverage and total visibility on the media, leading an electoral campaign obscuring all the other parties and experiencing impressive rise in its membership. At the same time, in December, Grillo’s movement was experiencing its lowest point, polled at 11 per cent. However, PD primaries turned out to have been a flaw, leading to a shift of the party to the left and hampering its capacity to lead a strong campaign. The PD was torn between the leftist wing envisaging a PD-SEL coalition government, and the centrist wing asking for a PD-Monti coalition government to be set up after the elections. Unfortunately both options would have proved to be impossible after the vote.

PDL: The Popolo Della Libertà was formed by the merger of the Berlusconi’s Forza Italia and the conservative Alleanza Nazionale, and since its creation it has been dominated by his leader. After four years of success and strength, from 2007 and 2010, the party started to experience some problems, originated from the lack of succession to Berlusconi and the lack of internal democracy. These became evident and, in 2011, it was necessary to renew the party leadership which damaged the party in 2012, when Berlusconi stepped back not only from the government but also from the front line of his own political creation. After months of semi-retirement, Berlusconi decided to lead the party again in January 2013, replacing in one night the leader he had personally appointed, Angelino Alfano.

Lega Nord: This far right party had always been Berlusconi’s ally and had always had its grass roots in the Northern Italy. Once strong, at the eve of the elections it was in decline and withdrawn to the northern regions.

The electoral campaign led by the PDL and its partner Lega Nord focused on the opposition against the austerity policies implemented by the Monti Government, depicting them as imposed and German-biased and contrasting them with sensationalistic proposals as the withdrawal of the property tax and other taxes introduced by the technocratic executive. This electoral campaign succeeded in targeting Monti in order to avoid losing ground on the centre, damaging the results of his government and finally crushing his centrist coalition, so to gain a result good enough to prevent the PD from having a majority in the Senate, even with Monti, and to force it into negotiations. Of course, this was not only due to a smart campaign but also to the fact that the PDL still had a wide base of support, going from the extreme right to conservative and to centrist Catholics, in other words, comprehending all those segments hostile to the left. Sectors of society as those of SME, retail, and professionals, are still linked to the PDL fearing a left-driven economy, and they represent a significant portion of the Italian electorate.

Scelta Civica, centrist UDC: When he was appointed in November 2011, Monti pledged not to become a political leader but, in December 2012, he announced that he was founding a centrist, pro-European party, which aimed to be a party composed by representatives of the civil society vis-à-vis the old politicians. Encouraged by the country’s economic and media establishment, Monti was confident that he would achieve significant results, both in the short and in the long term. In the short term, he was pointing at a satisfying electoral performance, obtaining 20 per cent of vote. In the long term, he aimed to draw moderate centrist voters, traditionally the centre ground to Berlusconi, and attract moderate members of Berlusconi’s party, pushing the PDL to the right. In the meantime, with 20 per cent of the vote, he would have been able to negotiate an easy alliance with the PD for a centre-left government without the right and left extremes.

Prime Minister Mario Monti led an electoral campaign mainly based on statistics, and centered on his persona, his role in Europe and his refusal to bend to populist policies like Berlusconi.

M5S: The 5 Star Movement originated from the Blog of the comedian Beppe Grillo five years ago, initially as a consumer movement and eventually, two years ago, also political. The Movement ran candidates who ran for local elections in 2012, with significant overall results, between 10 and 15 per cent, and one important achievement securing one of its candidates as mayor of an important city, Parma. Notwithstanding its debut in politics, the M5S has never turned into a party, maintaining the configuration of a movement that, under the strong leadership of Grillo and his behind-the-scenes counselor Gianroberto Casaleggio, is characterized by obscure internal governance and lack of structure, head office, or branches. The M5S message was clearly identifiable as strongly anti-Euro, anti-Germany, and anti-Monti. The main requests put forward by Grillo were centered on dismantling the “costs of politics” through the cut of the number and the salaries of MPs and local councilors, and the end of state funding for political parties. His invective tended to criticise violently the Italian political and economic elite and their privileges, while promoting direct democracy through the internet vis-à-vis the representative one, depicted as flawed and degenerated.

Around these elements, Grillo build an electoral campaign resulting in a mix of typical leftist arguments, as “minimum salary for everyone” (without stating where to find the resources), and right wing arguments, as the limit to immigration or the preservation of the citizenship ensured through its transmission via ius sanguinis instead of ius soli. Building consensus in the hopeless, poorer working class, Grillo understood that he had to remain at the centre of the protest and to avoid the risk to be classified as left or right, in order to secure the votes from both right and left. From an external point of view, it seemed that Grillo had the ambition to gain between 15 to 20 per cent, with a significant force but without being decisive to form a government. That would have allowed him to pursue his strategy of violent attacks and intransigent opposition without the responsibility of staying in government. The 26 per cent result created some difficulties because it exposed the low level of expertise of his team, leading some commentators to describe the newly elected M5S MPs as unfitted to be in Parliament.

Having illustrated the background of the elections, is it possible to understand better what happened after the vote:

After the initial shock, the PD tried to take advantage of the majority in the Lower House: without the PD, no government could be formed, and this was the starting point of the negotiations.

The leftist coalition formed by PD and SEL got 29.6 per cent, and the 26 per cent obtained by the PD was more than a disappointment. It showed the borders of the left wing party designed by Bersani, its inability to expand the electorate beyond the traditional borders of the grass roots of the left, traditionally smaller that the moderate and conservative Italian electorate constituency.

However, since the party had not technically lost the elections and was still the biggest force in Parliament, Bersani resisted the request to resign, and instead still pursued his ambition to become Prime Minister trough an agreement. In order to achieve this ambition, he had two options: the first was to secure an agreement with the 5SM MPs backing a PD minority government with their external support; the second one was to form a more traditional “grand coalition” with the PDL. Between these two options, Bersani chose the first one, since it would have been accepted and understood by the grassroots of the Democratic Party – that on the contrary would have never supported a joint government with the archenemy Berlusconi.

This strategy was risky for Bersani, because he didn’t know how to approach these newly elected M5S MPs, who so far had never been involved in politics and frequented the Parliament. On the other side, he was suffering the pressure coming by Berlusconi who was quick in offering the PD the second option, an agreement to form a grand coalition government.

This second option wasn’t repelled by the President of the Republic, who, on the contrary, supported the idea of a grand coalition. However, in order to comply with the Constitution and democratic common laws, he had to ask Barsani to form a government, since he was the leader of the party with the relative majority of seats. Yet it was a limited mandate with the goal to secure the support of a certain majority in parliament before proposing a government and calling for a confidence vote.

Hence, the leader of the PD, with this limited mandate, at first tried to pursue the strategy of the agreement with Grillo, but it was impossible. The path undertaken by Bersani turned out to lead to the stalemate: on the one side, Grillo refusing the agreement offered by Bersani, on the other, Bersani resisting the solution of a grand coalition offered by Berlusconi.

The stalemate was unsolvable, as the two possible exit strategies were impracticable. The first solution, represented by the power of the President of the Republic to dissolve the new Parliament – unable to express a new Government – and to call new elections, was not an option. Indeed, Giorgio Napolitano’s term was about to expire and, according to the Italian Constitution, the President of the Republic cannot use his power to dissolve the Houses during the last six months of his term of office. Also, nor the other option, which was going back to polls in a matter of weeks, could represent a solution, since without the reform of the electoral law, the elections would have led to an identical result and no majority would have been possible to build.

So, no Greek solution (new elections soon), no Dutch solution (PD-PDL coalition government) , no agreement between Bersani and Grillo: Italy was stuck in a total stalemate.

The political forces, after one month of negotiations, decided to wait for the appointment of the new President of the Republic, who, according to the Italian Constitution, is elected by a joint session of 1050 grand electors composed by the two chambers of the Parliament with three representatives of each Italian region. The rationale behind this decision made by the political forces was clearly strategic. Indeed, the new President would have been instrumental for the final outcome of the establishment of a future government: the election of a President supported by a wide consensus within the parliament would have meant the consequent formation of a coalition government, whereas the election of a President strongly promoted as the expression of the PD would have likely call soon new elections, probably already in July.

The drama of the elections of the President of the Republic:

In the light of the above, it was obvious that the presidential election would have had a very sensible and strategic importance and that Bersani would have pushed for a President coming from the party. The elections started on the 18April and Bersani initially tried to secure the appointment of a partisan runner, firstly with the candidature of Franco Marini and then with that one of Romano Prodi, but both were defeated. This double debacle hit the party badly and revealed the erosion its internal cohesion. In particular, Romano Prodi, generally considered as the founding father of the process leading to the creation of the PD, was voted down by one forth of PD grand electors, causing his defeated. The waking call was clear: Bersani drew its political consequences and resigned. Giorgio Napolitano was outstanding as the one and only candidate that would have received the support of all traditional political parties, which begged him to stay. After two days and six rounds of voting, on the 20April Giorgio Napolitano was re-elected.

It is not an easy task to predict what the scenario after the re-election of Giorgio Napolitano will be. His role as guarantor and his political incisiveness will probably offer the coverage for the installment of a coalition government led by a Prime Minister with political profile but perceived at the same time as neutral and that will last two years before calling new elections. Meanwhile, then, the political landscape will enter into a phase of transition that will affect the main political parties: the PD will have to face an internal period of reflection in order to elect a new leader; Monti and his party will progressively and likely become irrelevant in the Italian political landscape; Grillo will experience a moderate decline; and, strengthened by the drawback of his competitors, Berlusconi will manage to consolidate his position.

These elections and their aftermath leave the Italian political system in a state of weakness, and still in transition. None of the major political parties have a strong long-term panorama:

The PD is still the strongest party and maybe the last traditional organized party but it is facing the challenge of an era in which blogs can get more votes than hundreds of local branches. More deeply, it is a party that lacks an identity, in between a traditional socialist party, and a bigger truly democratic wider tent. The 2013 elections show that the left core vote in Italy is, as it has been from 1948, a strong, reliable, organised minority, but certainly not a majority.

As for the PDL, Berlusconi proved once again to be the best campaigner in the Italian political landscape. The PDL enjoys the biggest core base of support, represented by the conservative camp and the voters that are not ascribable to the left electorate. But its endurance is hampered by the fact that the party has never developed a leader selection mechanism and that its leadership has always been held by Berlusconi. Considered the age of the leader and that nowadays there is neither clear successor nor clear selection procedure, the possibilities of a meltdown of the party when Berlusconi retires are real. The party will soon need to find a new unifier of the centre-right political forces and electorate.

As for the smaller allies of the two main political parties, they will both probably retract. The Lega Nord has already proved to be on the retreat and still attached to issues such as immigration and federalism that are not central anymore in the political narrative and appealing to the electorate. On the other side, Scelta Civica will probably experience a quick and steady decline, and the demise of its leader Mario Monti will come along. The future for Monti is a prestigious role in EU Institutions, not in the Italian political arena. The centre of the political spectrum is currently squeezed between the competing forces of the PD, the PDL and the appealing protest vote to the 5SM that, all together, are eroding its electorate. Unquestionably, centrist future development will very much depend on the destiny of the PDL after the departure of Berlusconi and the possible collapse of his party.

As for Grillo and his movement, their endurance is really unpredictable as it was their growth, but it will certainly last until the worst of the economic crisis will be over. If getting 25 per cent of the vote has been an exploit difficult to repeat, the movement could occupy an area between 10 per cent and 15 per cent, making it one of the most significant examples of organised protest vote in Europe. Its aggressive language and propaganda, its organisation based on the web, its personal and charismatic leadership will certainly be analysed and copied in other European countries, especially, but not only, those under the stress of the economic crisis and massive unemployment.