Italy’s Election Is Dominated by Postfascists — but the Left Is Raising Its Head
The once mighty Italian left failed to enter parliament in any of the last three general elections. As the far right makes yet another breakthrough, it’s high time the Left organized around working-class Italians’ deep economic malaise.
Luigi De Magistris speaks during an electoral rally of the Unione Popolare in Naples, Italy, September 22, 2022. (Ivan Romano / Getty Images)
On September 7, a mostly young crowd turned out in Rome’s working-class Tuscolano neighborhood to welcome Jean-Luc Mélenchon, appearing on an impromptu stage. The popular French left-wing leader had come to Italy to support Luigi de Magistris, who appeared alongside him. A former mayor of Naples, De Magistris is today head of Unione Popolare, whose name is inspired by the coalition that supported Mélenchon in this spring’s French presidential election.
Unione Popolare is a new force uniting various organizations of the Italian left: Potere al Popolo, Rifondazione Comunista, DemA, Manifesta, and Paese Reale, as well as nonparty representatives of social movements. Created at the beginning of July 2022 with the intention of building a political project for elections scheduled for mid-2023, by the end of that same month it was forced to revise its plans, as the fall of Mario Draghi’s cross-party government brought the elections forward to today, September 25. Despite difficulties, Unione Popolare decided to run anyway, and in just two weeks in August, managed to collect the necessary signatures to participate in the elections across Italy.
Gloomy Election
Barring any twists and turns, the right-wing coalition will win today’s elections and form a government led by Giorgia Meloni. She is leader of the postfascist Fratelli d’Italia, which headed the final opinion polls with around 25 percent support. The Democratic Party, a liberal center-left force, presents itself as an alternative to the Right but lacks credibility. This is, in the first place, because of its recent record governing under Draghi in alliance with no less than three of the four parties that today support Meloni’s coalition (Fratelli d’Italia was the only major party to remain outside Draghi’s coalition). Second, it is because it’s the party mainly responsible for a senseless electoral law that is estimated to give almost two-thirds of seats to the Right even if it only gets around 45 percent of votes.
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