Berlusconi has lost his majority in
the lower house of the Italian parliament. Although he won a vote on the
latest round of austerity measures included in the budget, he did so
with less than half the votes of the MPs in parliament. The result of
the vote was 308 in favour, 1 abstention, but with the majority of MPs
not voting. This means the budget was approved but now Berlusconi stands
naked having lost his parliamentary majority. His days are numbered and
the pressure is mounting for him to go – something we are told he has now promised.
Berlusconi has lost his majority in
the lower house of the Italian parliament. Although he won a vote on the
latest round of austerity measures included in the budget, he did so
with less than half the votes of the MPs in parliament. The result of
the vote was 308 in favour, 1 abstention, but with the majority of MPs
not voting. This means the budget was approved but now Berlusconi stands
naked having lost his parliamentary majority. His days are numbered and
the pressure is mounting for him to go – something we are told he has now promised.
Berlusconi, 26 October. Photo: European CouncilWhat
is ironic about the Italian political situation is that the so-called
opposition – mainly the Democratic Party, a party formed out of a fusion
between the bulk of the old Communist Party and a number of bourgeois
parties – did not vote on the actual budget. This is sending out a clear
message to the bourgeois in Italy and internationally that they are a
party that can be trusted to do the job of implementing unprecedented
attacks on the living standards of Italian workers in the coming period.
They did not vote against, so as not to delay what they see as
“necessary” measures, and also not to bring down Berlusconi today and
force immediate elections. The gentlemen leaders of the Democratic Party
thus show to their masters, the rich and wealthy inside and outside –
mainly outside – Italy, that they are serious “statesmanlike”
politicians.
How far the former leaders of the old Communist Party of Italy have
travelled! After first becoming openly Social Democratic they finally
became all-rounded bourgeois politicians. When Stalin adopted the theory
of “socialism in one country” back in the 1920s Trotsky explained that,
“It will be the beginning of the degeneration of the Comintern along
the lines of social patriotism.” (Trotsky, The Third International After Lenin, 1928). How true those words ring today!
Now in this hour of need the Italian bourgeoisie can turn to these
“leaders” to step in and attempt to impose severe austerity on the
Italian people, Pier Luigi Bersani, leader of the Democratic Party,
addressing the Italian parliament after the vote and made a personal
appeal to Berlusconi to stand down. “I ask that, now, you finally accept
this situation, hand in your resignation and allow the president to
find a solution that will allow our great country to go forward. We will
do our part.” They will do their part indeed!
What the leaders of the Democratic Party mean by this is that
Berlusconi has proven incapable of carrying out fully and forcefully
enough the austerity measures demanded by the “markets”, i.e. the
capitalists, because he has his own narrow personal interests that stand
in conflict with the interests of the class he is supposed to
represent, and therefore the time has come for him to go.
However, it was not just the opposition that did not take part in the
vote. Even some of his so-called “allies” defected. Berlusconi’s main
ally, the Northern League has asked him to quit. The international money
markets are also sending out a clear message. They no longer have
confidence – if there was any to begin with – that he can deal with the
country’s debt crisis.
On the brink
All this comes at an extremely critical moment for the Italian
economy, which is on the brink of a major crisis. Italy’s government
borrowing rate is going through the roof. The yield on Italian 10-year
bonds today reached the record level of 6.76%, close to the 7% which saw
Portugal and Ireland having to accept bailouts. This indicates that
after Greece now it is Italy’s turn to be ripped to pieces by the
vultures sitting astride the “markets”. The spread between Italian and
German 10-year government bond yields is now wider than since 1995.
To give an idea of what a Greek scenario developing in Italy would
mean for the European Union and the euro it is sufficient to recall that
while the Greek economy represents a mere 2% of the eurozone’s GDP,
Italy is the third biggest economy in the EU behind Germany and France.
As Austria’s finance minister recently said, Italy is too big to fail.
But it has a public debt of 1.9 trillion euro, equivalent to 120% of its
GDP. This means that Italy’s debt is too big to be bailed out by the
European Union. With such a huge debt and with the growing lack of
confidence in Italy’s ability to pay, the interest keeps going up and
up, further increasing the size of the debt as each day passes.
Such is the concern about Italy’s ability to pay its debt at these
exorbitant levels of interest, that today Nick Sutton, the editor of BBC
Radio 4’s “The World at One” programme explained that lenders soon
“will not be willing to extend money to Italy at almost any interest
rate.”
If anyone has any doubts of what the Democratic Party would do in
government it is sufficient to quote Walter Veltroni, one of its key
leaders. When asked by La Repubblica today in an interview, what was his
model of government for a post-Berlusconi era, his answer was
Papandreou, a politician who had proved he was a “statesman” (“un uomo
di stato”). Veltroni proposes a transitional government to avoid
immediate elections. He says, “Can you see us going to elections with
the quarterly IMF check up taking place, with the markets that can set
in motion mechanisms based on the debt exposure of the country that
would be unbearable? No. Europe expects of us structural reforms,
serious measures, a [political] climate that is up to the situation.”
Now, as in Greece, there is talk of finding a national figure, a
respected technocrat that would be acceptable to all parties to become
the premier. The smell of a “national government” is everywhere, with
all parties putting aside their differences for the good of the nation.
Italy, just like Greece, Portugal and Ireland before it, is having to
come to terms with the fact that who governs the country is not the
elected government, but some unelected officials sitting in the European
Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund. Whoever the Italian
people elect will be called on to cut pensions, healthcare, education
and everything that makes for a minimally civilised existence. This
crisis is exposing the real nature of bourgeois democracy: you can vote
for whoever you want as long as once in government they carry out the
dictates of capital!
Growing militant mood
However, the bourgeois are going to discover what the Italian working
class is capable of. We have seen the series of general strikes in
Greece; we have seen the general strikes in Portugal and Spain; we have
seen the movements in Ireland. The Italian working class has a great
tradition of struggle, from the glorious movement in 1918-20, to the
mass anti-fascist movement in the 1940s, to the more recent wave of
strikes and occupations that erupted in 1968-69. In the recent period we
have seen signs of the growing anger developing among the workers and
youth. See our previous articles, Rome: October 15, Italy: September 6 general strike, Italy: Genoa 2001-2011, Half a million march in Rome and the many other articles we have published on the growing militant mood of the Italian workers and youth.
What is being prepared is an almighty clash between a bourgeoisie
that is weak, effete and corrupt but which has no other option but to
take on the workers, and a working class that is undefeated, with its
organisations intact and which is beginning to flex its muscles.
The tragedy of the situation is the organizational weakness of the
political organizations of the working class. The old Communist Party
has been absorbed into the Democratic Party. Those who refused to go
down the road of the Democratic Party created the Partito della
Rifondazione Comunista (the Party of Communist Refoundation).
Unfortunately, its leaders did not draw all the necessary lessons of the
past. As a result of this, the party has on different occasions either
supported “centre-left” governments from outside or has actually joined
such governments. These were governments that privatized, cut social
spending, attacking pensions, education and healthcare.
The price the party paid was that in the last general election it
lost every single member of parliament that it had, both in the lower
house and in the Senate. This led to a partial rethinking on the part of
the leadership at the last party congress, who declared that such
coalitions would not be repeated in the future. That, however, was under
the pressure of the ranks of the party. And very quickly those same
leaders have reverted to type, now seeking some kind of relationship
with the Democratic Party. They do not understand that on such a road
there is no solution.
This explains why the influence and strength of the Marxist Tendency
within the party, gathered around the journal FalceMartello, is getting
stronger. The 8th national congress of the party is coming up
in December. So far a number of local branch congresses have already
been held and the document presented by the Marxists stands at 20% of
the votes cast, confirming that they have become the real opposition
within the party.
The critical situation the Italian economy is in, with the prospect
of intensified class struggle on the agenda, makes it more urgent than
ever that the ideas of genuine Marxism become a powerful force within
the Italian labour movement.
[Note: we will be following up with further reports on the situation in Italy in the coming days]
