Parliamentary Elections In Italy: The Usual Tragicomedy

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Berlusconi is attempting a comeback. His party got little more than 15% of the vote, but his fascist 3-party coalition garnered one-third of the vote. Today, his face a mask from his apparent monthly lifts, his teeth set in a permanent death-like grimace that is supposed to be a smile, his head topped by something between wig and a blood-sucking animal, he claims victory for his alliance with the fascists of the Northern League and the Brothers of Italy and that he commands the coalition and will name the candidate Premier. He claims.

Little has changed four days later. The confusion remains. The heretofore governing Democratic Party (Partito Democratico, or PD) lost half its electorate, the Five Star Movement (Movimento 5 Stelle, or M5S) of Beppe “Fuck off” Grillo garnered one-third of the vote, many coming from the sinking PD, while another third went to the fascist-far right coalition of The Northern League (Lega Nord), Berlusconi’s Forza Italia or FI, and the smaller pure fascist party, Brothers of Italy (Fratelli d’Italia). The remaining third went to the remnants of the PD, until recently the country’s major party, and other disparate groups. Because of the distribution of parliamentary seats won last Sunday, any new government coalition must perforce include either the Northern League (18%) or the Five Star Movement (32%)  for the formation of a new government.

The formation of such a coalition government however is more difficult than it might appear. First of all, the program of the Five Star Movement, now Italy’s biggest party, excludes coalitions a priori, though it welcomes into the movement turncoats from other parties and sure enough some few PD members have expressed willingness to switch allegiances to the M5S . On the other hand, no one in their right mind wants the hardline, fascist-minded Northern League as an ally. Moreover, the PD officially has buried its head in the sand and opted not to enter any coalition and to go into the opposition. So, in effect, no majority at all is visible. So we can only wait for the usual Italian hocus-pocus. Or a re-vote.

Still, today’s post-election situation is not as anomalous as it seems, even though  Italians themselves do not understand what is to be done. You have to keep in mind that Italy is fundamentally a rightist country. Not only because of the 20 years of Mussolinian Fascism, but also because of its history of kowtowing to its foreign occupiers-rulers and its historical poverty. Extreme poverty. The poverty that saw tens of millions of Italians emigrate, chiefly toward the USA, but also to Argentina, Brazil and Australia. In one era, one-third of Calabrians abandoned their stricken southern region for New York. You ask an Italian-American in the New York area where their ancestors came from, and if they even know the answer may well be: Calabria. Southern Italians (traditionally right-wing) last Sunday voted en masse for the Five Star Movement, many because of its electoral promise of a basic income for every citizen.

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Italy emerged from World War II severely beaten and still poorer than before. Since war’s end a sometimes recalcitrant Italy has been under the tight control of the USA. US justified its presence by the so-called threat of a Communist takeover of Italy, the “weak underbelly of Europe” as it was known in the immediate post-war. The specter of Russian Cossacks watering their horses in the fountains of St. Peter’s Square was an effective propaganda scarecrow.

Consequently the US poured billions of dollars and unlimited propaganda into support of the Christian Democratic Party of Italy (CD). Interference? Most certainly. In order to swing the elections of 1946 and 1948 in favor of the CD and thus initiate 48 years of US control. And in order to defeat the forces of the left composed of Socialists and the Communists of the PCI. The party first created by Antonio Gramsci in 1923 and in the post war led-by Palmiro Togliatti returned from Moscow exile traditionally controlled one-third of the electorate. The strong presence of the left in conservative-anarchic Italy can be seen was a political backlash after 20 years of Fascism, the war, and the heroic role of the Communist-led Partisans in the defeat of Nazi Germany. Therefore the USA has never for a moment stopped its interference in Italian affairs in general. Official Americans here have long boasted that “we run this country’.

In fact the peninsula of Italy appears as an American armed camp and aircraft carrier pointed into the Mediterranean Sea. US/NATO planes took off from Italian airbases to bomb Libya, a stone’s throw from Sicily, and used US bases in north Italy to bomb into smithereens communist Yugoslavia just across the Adriatic Sea.

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But Italy has been more than only a US military base. The famous secret army of Gladio—allegedly created to resist eventual Soviet invaders—was formed where else but in Italy. After the revolutionary years of 1968, Gladio, CIA, NATO and Italian secret services initiated their form of the age-old strategy of tension tactic: infiltrating, financing, and managing terrorism. During the “lead years”, while bullets ripped through Italy, those secret forces kidnapped and executed Italy’s Prime Minister, Aldo Moro, for his attempt to bring the evil Communists of the PCI into the Rome government—all in order to justify the tightening of security measures and population control such as the militarization of police and the use of military forces on the streets of Italy, which to observant foreigners still seems an occupied country. Today no resident of Italy is surprised or even particularly disturbed by soldiers, police or carabinieri (little difference) armed with automatic weapons walking in pairs across Piazza Navona and down the Spanish Steps.

As an observer and partial participant my conclusions are not rosy. For as far as rendering invalid Italian Communists, the USA has apparently succeeded. The reality is that today, after long and painful agony, the Italian left has practically vanished from the parliamentary scene … if not from the political scene. That however does not mean that there are not still many leftists in Italy. Many Communists remain, I believe. But they are silent. They do not vote for the small splinter communist groups. The disappearance of the PCI,  (pronounced: peechee) was/is a tragedy. Communists are right to feel abandoned. Bereft. Orphans. Adrift. The absence of the magnet of a big, attractive Communist Party is so obvious. Anarchic they are but Italians still want to belong to something grand. Something shining and bright. Something that also others can love. They do not come out and support and vote for something concealed in the depths of society, something that nobody else sees.

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However, however, in place of the left, as that left sinks, a vicious right is rising. Maybe a new kind of right. An European right, but marked by the special Italian form of anarchy. A right that is skeptical regarding the European Union, (EU). Euroskeptics. And justly so. A right capable of following the example of the UK. It could organize a referendum something like the one in the UK. Many Italians oppose the bureaucratic EU. Many. Many. A right that in principle opposes US ordered and EU imposed sanctions against Russia which costs Italy a pretty penny. A right that in principle is NOT Russophobic. However if this right prevails, Italy’s path will be different from that of the UK. Again, Italian anarchy. In that respect, last Sunday’s vote may presage Italy’s turn away from the tight US domination of the past. In such case, other south European nations would be tempted to follow in its footsteps. I find it truly bizarre that parts of the right’s proposed program actually belongs to the left.