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Al-Ahram Weekly 4 - 10 May 2000 Issue No. 480 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 4 - 10 May 2000 Issue No. 480
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Special Features Travel Living Sports Profile People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters Shifting to the right
By Samia NkrumahGiuliano Amato became Italy's latest prime minister last week after winning a confidence vote with a larger-than-expected majority in parliament, making his government the country's 58th since World War II.
Amato's predecessor, Massimo D'Alema, who was Italy's first ex-communist to become prime minister, resigned following last month's regional elections, in which the opposition centre-right outshone the governing centre-left. The centre-right, headed by former prime minister and media tycoon Silvio Berlusconi, won eight of 15 regional presidencies -- most notably in Lazio, which includes Rome -- and the wealthy northern regions, leaving the centre-left in control of seven regions in the centre and south of the country.
D'Alema was not under any constitutional obligation to resign; the centre-left had won the 1996 elections and general elections are due to be held about a year from now. But the former prime minister had staked his leadership and his government's legitimacy on the regional elections. Vindicated by their good showing, the opposition called for the government's resignation, claiming that they now had greater support than the centre-left on a national level.
The poor showing was tantamount to voters' disapproval of D'Alema's leadership and government. Therefore, as D'Alema put it in his resignation speech, he deemed it "an act of political sensibility" to resign in response to the opposition's demands. In any event, everyone -- including the politicians -- behaved as if they were dealing with a general election rather than regional elections.
While it could be argued that the regional elections were not strictly a referendum on the D'Alema government's performance, there is no doubt that they were an indictment on the way the centre-left has comported itself in recent years. Italians are by now accustomed to frequent changes in government, but they remain hostile to political instability and worry about Italy's international standing as a result of this. This is the third time in less than two years that a centre-left government has collapsed.
A common thread running through the changes of governments is the bickering and disarray of the centre-left parties in the governing coalitions. The centre-left government of Romano Prodi, who preceded the D'Alema as prime minister and is now the current European Commission president, fell because its hard-line communist allies voted against the Prodi 1999 budget. D'Alema's 18-month tenure was racked by tension. He had already resigned last December, but was given a mandate, within a few days, to form another government with a new cabinet.
The cracks in the centre-left camp were highlighted by the regional elections campaign. They were unable to agree on their choice of candidates until the last minute and internal squabbles diverted them from clear policies at a time when the right was pushing for an ideological contest. The centre-left now appears ambiguous, caught between post-communists who adopted social democracy, their far-left communist allies and, finally, the centrists who were part of the governing coalition. The average voter spots this ambiguity and shies away from it with mistrust.
Ironically, it is D'Alema who seems to understand that what is called for are innovations and new political movements that go beyond the traditional right-left divides. He said recently that the choice now is not between the right and the left, but between "innovators and conservatives." It was D'Alema who led the moderate communists to break away from the communist party and form the Democrats of the Left, still the largest centre-left party. While he avoided the kind of rhetoric that many voters now regard as obsolete and anachronistic, many on the left disagreed and opposed him as much as his political opponents on the right. However, analysts predict that his dignified exit assures his eventual return to the political scene.
Indeed, despite being perceived as cold at times, no one, neither on the left nor the right, could fault D'Alema's intellectual prowess. Ultimately, he was constrained by the need to please his motley coalition and allies in parliament and sometimes failed to make reforms that he called for and wanted to push through.
In contrast, the centre-right opposition alliance has a strong, undisputed leader in the form of Berlusconi. They managed to unify their ranks and team up once again with the Northern separatists, who were responsible for the fall of Berlusconi's 1994 government by pulling out of the then governing coalition. In last summer's EU parliamentary elections, and the recent regional ones, they came up with firm anti-leftist policies, most notably anti-immigration and anti-tax policies which appealed to the electorate, as evidenced from the perceptible shift to the right.
It is hardly surprising, therefore, that the new Amato government's composition reflects a stronger centrist shade, a shift further away from the left. While key ministries such as foreign affairs and defence remain unchanged, they, together with finance, are under centrists' control and a few deputies are distinctly anti-communist.
While Amato, himself an economist, was treasury minister in the previous D'Alema government, he is an independent. He was in the Socialist Party of the late former Prime Minister Bettino Craxi, whose political career was brought to an end with a conviction on corruption charges and his subsequent self-exile in Tunisia. Amato, who was also prime minister in 1992-93, was responsible for reducing public spending and introducing large budget cuts. By choosing Amato, the centre-left seems to have settled on a replacement leader whom the opposition cannot accuse of being a communist. The opposition repeatedly taunted D'Alema "as the most Communist of them all." Now they are calling Amato a "useful idiot," in reference to the label given to non-communists who allied themselves with the communists in the '50s.
Despite the opposition's call for snap elections, a stable government will remain illusive regardless of its left or right colour, without the introduction of electoral reforms. Fresh elections would have meant that a series of referenda beginning on 21 May would have had to be scrapped. Reforming the electoral law would allow a first-past-the-post system of elections and abolish the proportional element that allows small parties to get into parliament provided they get four per cent of the votes. The result would be the emergence of two clear blocs, where one is in government and the other in opposition, as in Britain and the US. The electoral flaw that makes governing coalitions rely on smaller parties that unpredictably swing the balance one way or the other, remains the major source of Italy's unstable governments.
The newly-elected regional presidents have greater powers due to a modified regional system aimed at freeing them from the government's control preventing them from being hostages to shaky governing coalitions. If the outcome of this month's electoral reform referendum favours the creation of a strong two-bloc system, stronger national governments might finally see the light of day.
