Voters without a Party: The ‘Long Decade’ of the Italian Centre-Right and its Uncertain Future

Abstract

Following the corruption scandals of the early 1990s, the birth of the electoral coalition led by Silvio Berlusconi, and its occupation of government in 1994, 2001 and 2008, was interpreted by many as a sign of a new era of success for the Italian centre-right. Yet, after narrowly losing the 2013 national elections, the centre-right appears to have fallen into a political abyss. While opinion polls suggest that its potential electorate is still wide, the former allies that made up the coalition have been fragmented and weakened by a series of splits, leaving the centre-right divided into a more moderate component and an openly populist one. The centre-right’s old ruling elites have lost credibility, but the new younger leaders, like Matteo Salvini and Giorgia Meloni, are not able to re-unify the former coalition. The centre-right has been riven by several factors that explain its difficulties during the decade of the economic crisis: the personalisation of its leadership, factionalism, a divergence of programmes, a failure of institutionalisation and ongoing corruption and legal problems. These factors also look set to condition its political future.

Keywords:

• Italian politics
• Alleanza Nazionale
• Popolo della Libertà
• Fratelli d’Italia
• Lega Nord
• Berlusconi
• Salvini

Notes

1. Following the moves of its rival, the Unione, Berlusconi led a very heterogenous coalition, which included Forza Italia (FI), Alleanza Nazionale (AN), the Union of the Centre (UdC) and LN, plus a new list called Democrazia Cristiana–Nuovo Psi and extreme-right formations such as Alternativa Sociale and Fiamma Tricolore, to make sure that each actor fully catalysed the support of its own electorate.

2. The agreement also foresaw the division of electoral reimbursements to the two parties – still existing – that had formed the PdL: 75 per cent to FI and 25 per cent to AN (Mazza & Urso 2013, p. 116).

3. The topic was delicate because opinion polls (Itanes 2008) revealed a shift in votes to the advantage of the PdL from the catholic electorate, which was particularly attracted by the positions taken up by FI during the period of the Prodi government.

4. This was a judicial investigation into Berlusconi who was accused of having had a sexual relationship with an underage girl and to have paid prostitutes to enliven parties in his private residence.

5. The accusations proved valid and led to the direct involvement of Fini in the judicial investigation.

6. And also over other issues of international politics, such as the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, to which FI and AN were opposed. The divergences in such a field between the LN and its allies have been a constant over time (Tarchi 2007).

7. For example, the social right of AN can be included in the category of an (ideological) ‘current’, the group that formed the NCD a ‘fraction’, while ALA is a typical ‘parliamentary faction.’.