The Struggle in Italy – Opposition to Berlusconi’s Policies<\/p>\n
By Katrina Yeaw<\/p>\n
On Sunday October 9, 2005, thousands people demonstrated in the piazzadel Popolo in Rome against attempts by the Prime Minister, SilvioBerlusconi, to change election rules as well as against the financialpolicies of the Berlusconi government.<\/p>\n
Berlusconi and his allies have proposed a change in the voting rulesbefore next year’s general elections that are scheduled for April orMay 2006. Currently, Italy has a mixed electoral system with 75% ofthe seats being assigned by uninominal voting system and the remaining25% by a proportional system. If successful, the change will repeal a1994 amendment that brought about the current voting laws and create asophisticated proportional system with a 4% threshold for a party toreserve any seats. The proposed changes are expected to favor thecenter right since the center left coalition is made up of a number ofsmall parties, some of which have failed to reach 4% of the total votein recent elections. It is likely that today will be decisive indeciding whether Berlusconi is successful in pushing the reformsthrough parliament<\/p>\n
Opposition to Berlusconi’s economic policies center around his budgetplan for 2006 that cuts resources to regions and cities as well asprovides tax cuts for big business. It is also being fueled by ageneral fall in standard of living for Italian families over the lastseveral years.<\/p>\n
The demonstration, estimated at 100,000 people, was a sea of partyflags and balloons, mostly representing the center left of Italianpolitics. It was supported by the center left coalition l’Unione, theUnion, the former olive tree coalition, L’Unione is composed primarilyof Socialisti Democratici Italiani (SDI), Italian DemocraticSocialists; La Margherita – Democrazia \u00e8 libert\u00e0, a centrists party;Democratici di Sinistra (DS), the former Communists Party;Rifondazione Comunista, a split from DS, the Greens and another dozensmall parties that received from 0.5% to 2.0% in the last elections.However, the Disobbedienti, the political wing of the left squattercommunity centers in Italy, did not participate in the demonstration.<\/p>\n
Romano Prodi, a former European Union commission president, took the stage among loud applause and chats of “Prodi, Prodi, Prodi\u2026”. In his diplomatic remarks, Prodi declared that reintroducing proportionalrepresentation would be “gigantic steps backwards” for Italy anddescribed Berlusconi as suffering from “irresponsibility” and”incompetence”. He went on to condemn Berlusconi’s internationalpolicies and “military adventures” although he made not specificmention of Iraq or the 3,000 Italian troops stationed there. Prodi isexpected to be the candidate for l’Union in this springs generalelection against Berlusconi, which will be decided in a primaryelection on October 16, 2005. He was the only one of the sevencandidates running to address the crowd from the stage.<\/p>\n
Sundays rally is the first event expected to rock Italian politics andthe Berlusconi government in October. French President Jacques Chiracfaced a “Black Tuesday”, when more than a million people demonstratedin 150 cities across France on October 4th against unemployment,decreases in the standard of living and to demand rights for workersin the public and private sector in France. Berlusconi, on the otherhand, may face a “Black October”. On October 17th, a national generalstrike has been called in the public health sector and the officialunions are also calling for a 4-hour general strike, both inopposition to the government budget.<\/p>\n
Katrina Yeaw is a member of Students Against War, a chapter of theCampus Antiwar Network, at San Francisco State University. She iscurrently studying in Florence and can be reached atKatrina.yeaw@gmail.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Struggle in Italy – Opposition to Berlusconi’s Policies By Katrina Yeaw On Sunday October 9, 2005, thousands people demonstrated in the piazzadel Popolo in Rome against attempts by the Prime Minister, SilvioBerlusconi, to change election rules as well as against the financialpolicies of the Berlusconi government. Berlusconi and his allies have proposed a change… Continue reading The Struggle in Italy – Opposition to Berlusconi’s Policies<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-39","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/grassrootspeace.org\/campus_antiwar_network\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/grassrootspeace.org\/campus_antiwar_network\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/grassrootspeace.org\/campus_antiwar_network\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grassrootspeace.org\/campus_antiwar_network\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grassrootspeace.org\/campus_antiwar_network\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/grassrootspeace.org\/campus_antiwar_network\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/grassrootspeace.org\/campus_antiwar_network\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grassrootspeace.org\/campus_antiwar_network\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grassrootspeace.org\/campus_antiwar_network\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}