The state of the Italian left

After defeat in the referendum of the 12^th June, with his government under pressure from his increasingly rowdy coalition partners and the country facing a growing fiscal crisis, one might expect Berlusconi’s hopes of winning the next election, due in 2013, to have vanished. Yet the state of the left is at least as bad as that of the right, and in the country’s febrile and fractured political atmosphere the results of the next ballot are far from a foregone conclusion.

According to a Demos poll of the 27^th June, Nichi Vendola, governor of Puglia and leader of Sinistra Ecologia e Liberta, has the highest favourable ratings among the leaders of Italy’s political parties. Vendola is trusted by 41% of Italians, while Berlusconi languishes on 26%, one point behind his coalition partner Bossi. The same poll found that 52% of Italians now expected a victory for the left in the next elections, whereas in December 60% expected a win for the right.

Vendola was an active promoter of the anti-Berlusconi side in the recent referendum, campaigning against nuclear power stations and the privatisation of the water supply, ecological issues being central to his party’s platform. He is also an opponent of the high-speed railway being built between Val di Susa and Lyons. Vendola’s green homilies are delivered with the kind of poetic posturing that could only ever come from an ear-ringed ex-Marxist. On his twitter page he writes, “We must seek with all our strength to be in harmony with technological innovation.” In a video message to Berlusconi he whimpered that, “Your theatre of virility brings only sadness,” as if Italy was a country of lost puppies and weeping nuns. A concert to stop drilling on the island of Tremiti was described as, “An act of love to Tremiti.” If Berlusconi is the man who screwed Italy, Nichi Vendola is the man who wants to put on a Barry White album and seductively dim the lights.

A recent war of words with Antonio Di Pietro, who has similar approval ratings to Vendola, has shown up the problems facing the left. It’s not just that they are personal rivals, but it’s the choice of political direction that divides them. Di Pietro has been positioning his party towards the centre, apparently hoping he can take votes from the centrists who voted for Berlusconi’s declining Pdl and his coalition partners the Northern League, also dropping in opinion polls. After he was photographed in the Chamber chatting affably to Berlusconi he struck a conciliatory tone in the press, claiming that spending the next two years complaining about Berlusconi would be a waste. Vendola, on the other hand, has been calling for a national government to deal with the crisis, a near hysterical reaction, greeted with little interest by his comrades on the left.

Bersani would seem to be the natural choice to lead the left into the next Election, as the leader of the largest political party on the left, the PD. Yet despite gains in recent polls, the party’s rating of 30% barely tops the Pdl’s 26.4%, and the Pdl is supposed to be in a state of crisis. Certainly Bersani is ill-positioned to run as a clean pair of hands against the supposedly tainted Berlusconi. Corruption investigations have reached Bersani’s ally the PD senator Alfonso Papa, who is accused of involvement in the controversial P4 network, currently under investigation and involving political figures from the right. The scandal has helped strengthen the impression that politicians on both sides are equally untrustworthy. The somewhat higher ratings for Vendola and Di Pietro probably represent their status as relative outsiders to a political class that is poorly regarded.

Finance Minister Giulio Tremonti has a higher favourable rating than all the leaders of political parties, with 55%, and this should encourage the right. He has managed to face down demands for sweeping tax cuts from the Northern League while drafting legislation that includes pension reform and cuts to public services. His continuing popularity suggests there is awareness in the country that drastic action has to be taken to deal with Italy’s alarming public debt of 120% and stalling growth. A tax reduction break on businesses set up by young entrepreneurs was also included in the legislation, showing awareness that the private sector will have to produce growth if Italy is to recover. Perhaps here we see the reason why only 52% think the left will win the next election: throughout Europe electorates have recognised that economic reform is necessary in the face of the financial crisis. It seems quite possible that the right will receive the votes of the Italians despite their dislike for its leaders. And in that case the man who could command a right wing majority in Parliament would end up Prime Minister.