d’être. So many party leaders, ministers and
deputies were touched by scandal and accusations
of corruption moreover, that the political game
simply could not continue as before. The elec-
torate was disillusioned; business wished to end
government waste; the people of the north
baulked at subsidising the south; unemployment
ran at over 10 per cent. The demand for political
change thus became irresistible.
Reforms were passed in time for the March
1994 national elections. Three-quarters of the
seats were allocated to ‘first-past-the-post’ winners
in constituencies and one quarter on the basis of
the old proportional representation but with a
new 5 per cent hurdle. The politicians of the estab-
lished parties rushed to put on new clothes. The
Communist Party, phoenix-like, re-emerged as the
Democratic Party of the Left (PDS); a minority
of the old orthodox party now called them-
selves Reconstructed Communists; the disgraced
Christian Democrats turned to its pre-fascist past
and fought the election as the Popular Party of
Italy; but there were also entirely new forces such
as the Northern League led by Umberto Bossi, a
regional party wishing to break up the centralised
state and demanding the right to keep the wealth
generated by industry in the region; it had already
made a striking debut in the elections of 1992. The
real phenomenon of 1994, however, was the emer-
gence of an anti-socialist, free-market, right-wing
party, the brainchild of a charismatic business
tycoon Silvio Berlusconi, owner of three national
TV channels and the Milan football club whose
battle cry, forza, inspired the name of his party,
Forza Italia. Formed only a few weeks before the
March 1994 elections to stop the expected band-
wagon of the left, Berlusconi scored an unprece-
dented victory. The elections were fought in
alliance groupings of the left as the ‘Progressives’,
the right as the ‘Freedom Alliance’, and the centre,
‘Pact for Italy’.
Italian political traditions are deeply ingrained
and electoral reform will not change them
overnight. Bribery and patronage are endemic;
non-payment of taxes is a sport for the self-
employed. What appeared to be a breakthrough
when Berlusconi with his new Forza Italia Party
won the elections of 1994 proved illusory.
Predictably, Bossi’s Northern League broke up
the coalition, later becoming more extreme in
demanding ‘independence’ for the north. Basic
problems – the hole in public finance, disparities
of regional wealth, taxation and welfare reform –
remain. The technocrat caretaker administration
had no time during its brief period of office
between January 1996 and the elections of April
1996 to achieve much. The elections, however,
did mark a change when Romano Prodi, who
headed a centre-left Olive Tree coalition, defeated
Berlusconi’s Freedom Alliance. For the first time
the new government included ‘reformed’ commu-
nists; but it also had to rely on the votes of the
unreconstructed ones.
The fundamental change in politics has not
just been the demise of the corrupt old Christian
Democrat Party but the entry of the communists,
who continue to enjoy strong electoral support in
government. Although they do not have a two-
party system, alternative and opposing coalitions
can now provide the electorate with a real choice:
a gain for democracy.
In Italy the need to qualify for monetary union
also topped the political agenda. Its reputation for
unsound finance has been strenuously repudiated
and reforms have been driven through with
determination. Stringent campaigns were fought
against those prominent politicians and industrial-
ists who were involved in bribery and corruption
scandals. With the formation of the centre-left
Olive Tree coalition government in May 1996 the
administration of Prime Minister Romano Prodi
also brought some political stability to the country
after a turbulent decade that saw the emer-
gence of Silvio Berlusconi’s new right-wing Forza
Italia movement and Umberto Bossi’s separatist
Northern League. Prodi wanted to tackle the
roots of Italy’s deficit spending, the over-generous
welfare payments, especially pensions, and the
bloated civil service and bureaucracy, in order to
qualify for the European Monetary Union. But
this centre-left coalition, which included the
reformed communists, also needed the support of
the Marxist rump communists, who had formed
the Communist Refoundation Party. The 1997
budget created tensions but the Marxists were
reluctant to risk another general election in which
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