Elections in Italy

The Italian capitalist class was hoping to get a strong and stable government after the election. The election results came as political earthquake for them since both the traditional parties of the country’s capitalist class suffered defeat.

The result clearly showed that both the parties that ruled Italy in the last two decades have been seriously weakened. The other problem is that no party – including the centre-right and centre-left coalitions – was able to win a majority share to form government. The electorate in Italy – with a turnout of 73 percent – thus produced a hung parliament.

The centre-right coalition emerged as the largest block in parliament and got 37 percent votes and 260 MPs; the Five Stars Movement (M5S) got 32.68 percent votes and 221 MPs; the centre-left coalition led by the Democratic Party got 22.85 percent votes and 112 MPs; and Liberi e Uguali 3.39 percent and 14 MPs. To form a majority government in parliament would require 316 MPs, which no party has achieved. It might take months to form a coalition government, as has also happened in Germany.

The populist Five Star Movement (M5S) emerged as the largest party, while the Democratic Party (PD) suffered defeat and came second. The party of former prime minister Berlusconi, Forza Italia (FI), failed to make big gains. More than 50 percent of votes went to populist and perceived anti-establishment parties, reflecting a clear rejection of traditional politics and a desperate desire for change after years of corruption, austerity and economic devastation for ordinary people.

The problem is that no one knows how any functioning coalition can be built. The centre-right needs 56 MPs to form government, whereas the M5S would need 95 more MPs to do the same. There is much speculation now about what kind of government will emerge in Italy. There could be a M5S-Democratic Party coalition, a deal between the M5S and the League or even some arrangement between the Democratic Party and the centre-right.

This comes at a time when the Italian bourgeoisie requires a strong government capable of further cutting back on the welfare state and workers’ rights in general, in order to tackle the huge black hole in state finances (equivalent to 132 percent of GDP), a failing banking system and a stagnating economy that has not even been able to recover to pre-2008 crisis levels.

In the past, they thought they had found in the Democratic Party the force they needed to guarantee their interests, and when that failed they could call back Berlusconi. The problem is that the big losers in these elections were precisely the Democratic Party and Berlusconi’s Forza Italia. This is part of a wider international phenomenon that has seen the collapse of both centre-right and centre-left parties. The reason is that these parties are associated with austerity and neo-liberal policies.

The big loser in these elections is the centre-left coalition centred on the Democratic Party. The centre-left won less than 23 percent, down from its 29.5 percent in 2013. In the 2014 European elections, the Democratic Party had won over 40 percent. That was when it was riding high and party leader Renzi felt no one could challenge him. The Democratic Party continued to push through a series of anti-worker legislation and severe austerity measures. In these elections, it paid the price for those policies, winning a mere 18.8 percent – not much more than the League – and losing almost three million votes compared to 2013.

The Five Stars Movement won overwhelmingly in the south and among the youth. In the south, its vote was between 45 percent and 55 percent in different regions, and among the youth its vote was 43 percent. This is very significant, as the youth and the south have suffered most from the crisis of capitalism in recent years and have been hit hard by unemployment. The party also did well among industrial workers, casual workers and the layers of the middle class that have been ruined by the economic crisis.

The crisis in Italy has been particularly hard. It is estimated that 90 percent of the population has suffered economic losses. Across Europe, this number is on average 70 percent. Since the beginning of the crisis, in 2008, there was a loss of 27 percent of production capacity – since 25 percent of industries were closed, with a consequent loss of jobs.

Thus, the vote for the Five Stars is clearly a vote of protest and a way of sweeping away all the old parties who were seen to be responsible for this situation. The more-than-ten-million Italians who voted for the Five Stars were voting against the system as a whole.

The bulk of the centre-right is made up of Berlusconi’s Forza Italia and Matteo Salvini’s League. Once called the Northern League, the party has now recycled itself as a right-wing, racist, anti-immigration, conservative outfit, and has tapped into the fear of a section of the population in the context of the ‘constant’ arrival of migrants from Africa and Asia. One of the League’s main slogans was ‘Italy for the Italians’. Its vote went from 4 percent in 2013, concentrated in the north, to 17.6 percent with a more national spread today. Berlusconi’s party, on the other hand, has gone from 21.5 percent in 2013 to 14 percent today.

Both the far-right and far-left failed to make any impact. There was once a strong left tradition in Italy but the situation is different now. The Italian working class has gone from having a powerful two-million strong Communist Party to now ending up with no real party at all.

The writer is a freelance journalist.