April 2011 - Centre for Civil Society - University of KwaZulu-Natal

suffering from a lack of raw materials and being quite dispersed, exported
its products all over the world. It was aided by low labour costs and a weak
currency which, if necessary, could be weakened further.
Small businesses with few workers and low wages sprung up like
mushrooms in former agricultural areas. (“Small but beautiful” was the
employers’ slogan in the 1980s). This system became blocked even before
the current economic crisis broke. Entry into the Euro put an end to the
often-used tactic of periodic devaluations of the Lira. Production costs,
however low, have suffered devastating competition from Eastern Europe
and Asia. In this situation, the only perspective which the bosses
considered practical was to attack wages and to support a government
which promised to reduce taxes, at the cost of cutting public services.
Electoral alliances
To govern the country, Berlusconi needed an electoral support which
would give him a solid majority in parliament. Without any scruples he set
out to tie two other forces to his party - both of them on the right and
apparently irreconcilable. They were the Lega Nord - racist, separatist and
rooted only in the rich northern regions - and Alleanza Nazionale (AN) -
inheritor of the neo-fascist MSI and based mainly in the South. Exploiting
the weaknesses of both parties - the limited potential expansion of the
former and the isolation of the latter, because of its links with fascism -
Berlusconi got a relatively solid parliamentary majority. (This remains
despite the recent defection of a part of the former AN - which had
merged with FI to form the PDL - led by Gianfranco Fini.)
Not content with that, he got an electoral law passed which is unique in
Europe. It has a threshold of 4% for any party to get into parliament, it
gives extra seats to a winning party or coalition which assures it an
absolute majority and it includes a block list system which gives the
leaders of each electoral alliance or party the power to decide which
candidates will be in parliament. It enables a party with a minority of
votes the possibility of getting a firm control in parliament.
Ineffective opposition
It has been the opposition, however, whose role it should be to fight
Berlusconi, that has been the real reason why he has lasted so long. Faced
with this social bloc, centred on a rough but clear programme, the
opposition is gathered around the Democratic Party (PD), (which includes
forces from the former Communist Party and the Christian Democrats).
The PD has always carefully avoided building an alternative mass
movement, preferring to follow the government in courting the bosses and
the middle class.
When in 2002 Berlusconi decided that the time had come to attack
workers’ rights head on by proposing to abolish Article 18 of the ‘Workers
Statute’ (which gives workers in larger factories some protection against
dismissal), an impressive mass movement developed, led by the CGIL trade
union federation. This culminated in one of the biggest trade union
demonstrations in Italian history on 23 March, 2002, and forced the
government to withdraw its proposals.
Instead of taking advantage of this opportunity to defeat the government,
the opposition parties preferred to let the movement ebb rather than risk
governing on the wave of a workers’ victory. In this case it would have
been difficult to get the support of Confindustria (the employers’
federation).
In fact, the victory of the ‘centre-left’ four years later took place in the