Italian politics. Ways to stop squabbling

Italy takes a wobbly step towards two-party politics

MOST Italians would prefer to have a two-party democracy. What they have instead are loose alliances of left and right, made up of nine and six parties respectively. Few people in Italy keep their opinions to themselves, so the authority of the alliance leaders is always undermined by sniping from fellow party bosses. So how, as head of an alliance, can you pull rank and make your partners pipe down for long enough to fight an election?

The question has taxed both Italy's prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi, and its opposition leader, Romano Prodi. Now, it seems, there is a solution: American-style primaries. Mr Prodi, who first backed the idea, is touring Italy in a big yellow truck to rally votes in a nationwide preliminary ballot, due on October 16th. Organisers say more than a million people will vote.

While Mr Berlusconi is less keen, the leaders of three of the four largest parties in his coalition want a vote on who will be the right's prime-ministerial candidate at the election to be held by next spring. Mr Berlusconi no longer rules this out.

Mr Prodi likes primaries more than Mr Berlusconi because he is more confident of winning. He has the backing of both the biggest groups in his coalition. But he faces a real threat from the leader of Italy's communists, Fausto Bertinotti; he has extended his old working-class power base to include young urban radicals and minority groups, such as gays. There is every chance Mr Bertinotti's more ideologically motivated followers will turn out in proportionately greater numbers to boost their man: that is what happened last time the left experimented with primaries, before the regional elections in spring, when a gay Marxist won the candidacy in conservative Puglia, Italy's “heel”.

Mr Berlusconi's problems are more serious. His coalition is trailing by up to 9.5 percentage points in the polls and its third-biggest party, the Union of Christian Democrats (UDC), has been insisting the problem is one of leadership. In the other parties, too, there is a feeling that the prime minister, who turned 69 this week, might not be the right person to stand for another five-year term.

A poll by the Ekma research institute found Mr Berlusconi would beat the UDC's best hope, the speaker of the Senate, Pier Ferdinando Casini. But he would be vulnerable to Gianfranco Fini, the foreign minister, who is also deputy prime minister and leader of the second-biggest party on the right, the formerly neo-fascist National Alliance. Mr Fini says he will not stand in a primary; his aides say he will.

Primary elections unquestionably offer a way of calming the perennially troubled waters of Italian politics. But until Italy has a system of registered party voters, they will remain a curious venture.

In the left's vote, anyone claiming to support the opposition's broad aims will be able to cast a ballot, at a cost of one euro ($1.21) to cover the expenses of polling. Nothing stops government supporters turning out to vote for Mr Bertinotti as a way of undermining Mr Prodi. Indeed, there have been claims that the vote in Puglia was distorted in just this way. To be effective, Italy's “primaries” need be seen as accurate tests of opinion - or they will simply lead to even more squabbles.

Italy takes a wobbly step towards two-party politics.