The Forward March of Populism Continues

By Henry Srebrnik, [Summerside, PEI] Journal Pioneer

 

The forward march of populism in Europe continues. Its latest manifestation resulted in an almost complete breakdown of Italy’s party structures.

The parliamentary election held on March 4 was widely seen as a bellwether of the strength of populists on the continent and how far they might advance into the mainstream.

As it turned out, support for centrist parties virtually collapsed, as Italians handed a majority of votes to right-wing and populist forces that ran a campaign fueled largely by anti-immigrant anger.

Luigi Di Maio’s populist Five Star Movement and the far-right League (formerly the Northern League), led by Matteo Salvini, emerged as the two main victors, with 32.66 per cent and 17.37 per cent, respectively, of the total vote. 

Former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia gained 14.01 per cent. The three parties have become the most potent forces in the country. 

The League’s strong showing – the party quadrupled its share of the vote from five years ago -- confirmed the depth of disenchantment with democratic institutions in the country.

As for Five Star, its result was even more remarkable. Founded by a comedian, a party that didn’t even exist a decade ago has emerged as Italy’s largest vote-getter. 

The party swept southern Italy by speaking to the region’s frustration with its economic marginalization over many decades, the persistence of corruption and the continuing influence of organized crime.

“Today, for us, the third republic commences,” Di Maio said after the votes came in. “At last, the republic of Italian citizens.” Alfonso Bonafede, a member of parliament from the party, declared that it “will be the pillar of the next legislature.”

Altogether, the three populist groups received two-thirds of the total vote. “Salvini could really invent or build a new right-wing coalition,” remarked Paolo Natale, a professor of political science at the University of Milan.

On the other hand, the principal centre-left party, former prime minister Matteo Renzi’s Democratic Party, lost a quarter of its electorate and was routed, coming in with 18.72 per cent. 

Renzi had stayed at the helm of the Democratic Party even after he lost a referendum in 2016 that was about constitutional reform, and alienated many of the party’s core constituents.

The Northern League had been a separatist group that wanted to split the country’s rich industrial territories from the agricultural south.

But after Salvini took over four years ago he shifted the focus towards nationalism. Renamed the League, it has driven home its anti-migrant message.

Along with Greece, Italy has borne the brunt of recent large movements of refugees and migrants into Europe from places such as Afghanistan, Libya and Syria. 

Italians have felt that they got little help from the European Union in Brussels or from other member states. 

Consequently, the League, which wants to deport thousands of migrants who have arrived in recent years, surged from four percent of the vote in 2013 to almost 18 per cent, thanks in large part to the party’s campaign slogan, “Italians First.”

Salvini wants to close mosques, bolster Italy’s borders and take sovereignty back from the European Union. He has called for a “different” kind of Europe, one that gives more power to national interests over pan-European commitments.

In Italy, distrust in institutions, economic depression, and the crisis of identity brought by globalisation have come together in Forza Italia, the League and the Five Star Movement.

The League promotes a radical brand of xenophobia, while the more ideologically amorphous Five Star Movement attacks the corruption of mainstream parties. A new opposition is replacing the traditional polarity of moderate left and moderate right.

In the 2008 edition of his book Understanding Comparative Politics: A Framework for Analysis, Mehran Kamrava, a professor at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service in Qatar, observes that when a disjunction or disconnect arises between those who rule a state and the majority of the citizens in the society that it governs, trouble follows.

A political class no longer ideologically congruent with the underlying political culture will invariably face major challenges by parties wishing to overturn the elite’s norms and values around matters such as immigration, which pertain to the very character and identity of the country.

Such an increasing incompatibility between state and society is plunging Italy, and much of Europe, into crisis.