Elle Gierre writes on the second anniversary of one of the most significant victories – and wasted opportunies – in the history of the Italian left
June 13th 2013 was the second anniversary of one of the most significant, and yet overlooked, victories in the history of the Italian left – the popular referenda against the privatization of water services, the re-introduction of nuclear energy (that was banned in 1987 through another referendum) and a law that practically granted immunity from prosecution to Italy’s Prime Minister (this was an ad hoc bill meant to stop the many trials of Silvio Berlusconi, who was the Head of Government at the time). On 12-13 June 2011, more than 27 million Italian citizens cast their ballot; an overwhelming majority voted against not only a return to nuclear energy and entrusting local water services to private contractors, but also the principle itself that the tariffs for the supply of water should be based on the provider’s profit.
Despite two decades of virulent neoliberal propaganda in favor of unbridled privatization, a huge number of Italian people now raised their voices in defense of public services and “common goods”; in less than 48 hours, the Thatcherite myth according to which the private sector would do it better was swept away. This astonishing result was first and foremost a victory of grassroots radical activism over the stale neoliberalism of the entire Italian political establishment.
A people’s victory from below
Mainstream political pundits were caught by surprise by the result of the 2011 referenda, and the high turnout especially. It was since 1995 that the outcome of a popular referendum had not been valid: in Italy, a referendum must reach a quorum of 50.1% of the potential voters in order to be legally binding; this means that those campaigning against a referendum can simply ask their electorate to abstain, making it extremely hard to reach the quorum.
This was exactly the strategy pursued in 2011 by Berlusconi and the Italian right: that is, to encourage abstention by any means, including silencing the official media (first and foremost, television) and the decision to hold the referenda in June (when the turnout is traditionally lower). The leadership of the centre-left Partito Democratico did not endorse the referenda until a couple of weeks before the vote – also because, it should be added, centre-left municipalities had been at the forefront of the water privatization process (a case in point was Arezzo, the first Italian town to partly privatize the water management company in 1998).
Without the support of institutional politics, the referenda were promoted by a vast and virtuous coalition, ranging from all the parties of the radical left (Federazione della Sinistra, Sinistra Ecologià Libertà, Sinistra Critica) to trade unions such as the CGIL and the COBAS, networks such as Attac Italia or ManiTese and even the ‘social’ wing of Italian Catholicism (e.g. the Rete Lilliput or the ACLI). Remarkably, many grassroots militants and branches of the Partito Democratico autonomously decided to support the referendum, in dissent from their leadership. Each of these networks was able to mobilize its own constituency, also thanks to a very effective use of the new social media, making the referenda a true people’s victory from below.
Water as a common good?
The leading role in launching the referenda, however, was played by the Forum italiano dei movimenti per l’acqua pubblica. This was a campaign established in 2006 with the aim of defending water as a ‘common good’. As the Forum’s spokesperson Paolo Carsetti explained to us, in their view common goods are something more than ‘public goods’ – they are goods that not only belong to the entire community but which should also be managed by the community in a participative way. The idea of common goods can be applied to a variety of basic and social goods, for example the environment, education or access to knowledge.
In a theoretical perspective, the common-goods approach is far from flawless (the most obvious is focusing more on the consumption than the production of goods; but also, how large is the community to which a common good such as water belongs?). Nonetheless, one of its merits is that it may provide (and, at least to an extent, it has provided) a valid umbrella under which a number of social and political movements can gather – as happened with the 2011 referenda. In a way, in the last two years, the history of the campaign in defense of common goods has become the paradigm of a wider campaign for a genuinely left-wing turn in Italy.
After 13 June 2011
The sensational victory of 13 June 2011 was regarded by many as a sign of a recovery of Italy’s left and the death knell of Berlusconi’s government. In the ensuing months, many thought that a wide coalition including the radical left, trade unions, social movements and part of the Partito Democratico may form, and that Berlusconi’s ever weaker government may collapse under the pressure of popular mobilization. This, however, would not happen: the leadership of the Partito Democratico stubbornly clung to a “moderate” line, and even refused to meet the organizers of the referenda; a huge popular demonstration against the government and EU austerity ushered in chaos, leaving the Italian left in disarray; and finally, it was Angela Merkel, not the Italian people, who gave the final blow to Berlusconi, replacing him with a neoliberal technocrat, Mario Monti. Within a couple of months of the referenda, a unique opportunity for radical change had been wasted.
Remarkably, this political defeat also resulted in repeated attempts to ignore, or even overturn, the outcomes of the referenda, at least at the national level. On 28 December 2012, for example, the Monti government re-introduced the principle for which the tariffs for water services should guarantee a profit share for the provider. To date, the only Italian city in which water services have been made public again is Naples (even though the process has also begun in other cities, for example Vicenza, Piacenza and Reggio Emilia). More in general, despite the passionate efforts of local campaigners, austerity policies have made it ever more difficult to defend public services and common goods.
What happened in the aftermath of the victory in the 2011 referenda should be a matter for deep reflection for the Italian left. On the one hand, it highlights how wide the gap between people’s will and representative institutions has become in the age of neoliberalism. The centre-left Partito Democratico especially has proven not to understand how radical a change its electorate really wanted – one of the reasons for the success of the 5-Star movement in the 2013 elections. Furthermore, the EU-led Monti government unashamedly ignored the expressed will of Italian people on the issue of public services – showing how deeply undemocratic neoliberalism is at its very heart.
On the other hand, however, the limits of single-issue referenda as a means to achieve long-term change have also been laid bare. The 2011 campaign was a great success because it united a large number of movements into a diverse and yet strong coalition. After the referenda, however, this coalition was not able to stay united, to work on a wider, shared platform (e.g., in defense of common goods) and remain politically influential. The lack of political representation made it extremely difficult to even defend the results of the referenda.
The 2011 referenda in Italy were a victory of great symbolic significance for the Italian left – and yet they have been thus far a “one-off” victory. It is by creating a permanent coalition and generalizing the struggle only that lasting political and social change can be achieved.
