Bella Ciao

On Saturday 14 November the biggest Italian trade union federation, CGIL, held a national demonstration in Rome. While I guess that's a good thing, the slogan, 'Labour and the crisis: we demand answers', was vaguer than vague. What answers? Surely they might have some to suggest? But apparently not.

The turn-out, announced from the platform at the start of the speeches, was 70,000 - three trains and over 700 coaches from across the country. By British trade union standards, that would be pretty respectable, but in Italian terms it's not particularly impressive. But when your demo's essentially pitched as a general show-of-strength day out in Rome, with no strategy attached, that's not really surprising.

This campaigner wanted Berlusconi to think about people's pay-packets, not just his own troubles with magistrates. Fair enough point, but note the home-made banner: even that sort of minimal message didn't make it onto the official ones.

This local section highlighted an anti-mafia campaign.

Rifondazione Comunista and its former left current Sinistra Critica, now going it alone, had stalls at the main rally. Both made some reasonable demands in response to the crisis in terms of stopping sackings, defending contract workers and improving welfare benefits; Sinistra Critica differentiated itself by calling for a general strike.

Italian teachers gather on Saturday 3 October to protest against job cuts. Fifty-seven thousand teachers employed on fixed-term contracts, many of whom have worked in the same job for years, have been sacked in a government 'reform'. The total cuts are expected to increase to 150,000 jobs in the next two years. Class sizes have soared, school hours have had to be cut, and students with special needs no longer have teaching assistants.

The demo was organised by a network of co-ordinating committees of the sacked teachers. They were keen to make sure that they - and not the organised left or trade unions - led the demo. Union and party banners were kept to the back. While some hostility to the major unions is understandable given their limited support for the teachers' dispute, I suspect it also reflects some anarcho-syndicalist influence.

The front of the demonstration: the banner says 'dignity and a future for state schools'. It was hard to judge the size of the demo, but I'd say ten thousand at most.

Here Sicilian teachers say 'No to zero hours contracts'

Here fixed-term contract teachers in Rome describe the cuts as a 'fraud'.

This big demonstration for freedom of the press, supported by the mainstream 'centre-left' Democratic Party, should have been held two weeks earlier, but was moved to the same day as the teachers' protest. The formal reason for the change of date was 'out of respect for troops killed in Afghanistan' (there'd been big casualties around the original day). But it also had the effect of marginalising the teachers' protest.

Italy's supreme court has now confirmed that the centre-left won the elections. So far, so good. And what are the centre-left doing? Launching a job-creation programme to tackle Italy's massive unemployment? Cracking down on the Mafia? No... they are squabbling about who is going to be President of the Camera (Chamber of Deputies). It's between Massimo d'Alema of the Left Democrats and Fausto Bertinotti of Rifondazione Comunista.

Well, barring disasters, it seems that Berlusconi has just been squeezed out of office here, though it was hardly a convincing win for Prodi. Rifondazione did well compared to the rest of the centre-left coalition. Still, there was not exactly a party mood in the local party office last night. Someone said it was a meagre victory, which was about right. The exit polls put the left well ahead, and I had visions of re-living 1992, but fortunately it didn’t end quite so badly. Here are some of the figures:

Turn-out was very high – 83.6%, up from 81.4% last time round.

Rifondazione was the only bit of the left coalition to significantly increase its percentage from 2001. It now has 27 out of 317 senate seats (up from 3) and 41 out of 618 in the camera (lower house), up from 11. However, it is hard to make direct comparisons because the electoral system has changed to become more proportional (Berlusconi hoped this would help him win).

Here are some of the key numbers for the centre-left:

Senate:

Left Democrats (ex-CP, now social democrats) 17.5%

Margherita (ex-Christian Democrats, Catholic liberals) 10.7%

Rifondazione Comunista 7.4% (5% in 2001)

Comunisti Italiani plus Greens plus Consumers in a joint list to get over the threshold (yes, really) 4.2%

Camera:

Ulivo (Left Democrats plus Margherita) 31.3% (30.1% in 2001)

Rifondazione Comunista 5.8% (5% in 2001)

Rosa nel pugno (secularists, liberals) 2.6%

Comunisti Italiani 2.3% (the split from Rifondazione which stayed in Prodi’s last govt when Rifondazione left)

How to explain the difference in Rifondazione’s vote for the Senate and Camera? Several possibilities. One: the franchise for the Camera is over-18s, for the Senate over-25s: the Communist vote is ageing. Two: ticket-splitting – people vote for Prodi’s coalition in the Camera then for Rifondazione in the Senate as a ‘conscience’ (Rifondazione made a big deal of the idea that a vote for them was a guarantee that Prodi would deliver a left-ish programme). Three: the united ‘Ulivo’ party made up of the Left Democrats and Margherita is more popular with voters than the two parties standing separately. Four: the Comunisti Italiani were on a joint list with the Greens, making Rifondazione the only straightforward Communist option for the Senate.

Well, barring disasters, it seems that Berlusconi has just been squeezed out of office here, though it was hardly a convincing win for Prodi. Rifondazione did well compared to the rest of the centre-left coalition. Still, there was not exactly a party mood in the local party office last night. Someone said it was a mean victory, which was about right. The exit polls put the left well ahead, and I had visions of re-living 1992, but fortunately it didn’t end quite so badly. Here are some of the figures:

Turn-out was very high – 83.6%, up from 81.4% last time round.

Rifondazione was the only bit of the left coalition to significantly increase its percentage from 2001. It now has 27 out of 317 senate seats (up from 3) and 41 out of 618 in the camera (lower house), up from 11. However, it is hard to make direct comparisons because the electoral system has changed to become more proportional (Berlusconi hoped this would help him win).

Here are some of the key numbers for the centre-left:

Senate:

Left Democrats (ex-CP, now social democrats) 17.5%

Margherita (ex-Christian Democrats, Catholic liberals) 10.7%

Rifondazione Comunista 7.4% (5% in 2001)

Comunisti Italiani plus Greens plus Consumers in a joint list to get over the threshold (yes, really) 4.2%

Camera:

Ulivo (Left Democrats plus Margherita) 31.3% (30.1% in 2001)

Rifondazione Comunista 5.8% (5% in 2001)

Rosa nel pugno (secularists, liberals) 2.6%

Comunisti Italiani 2.3% (the split from Rifondazione which stayed in Prodi’s last govt when Rifondazione left)

How to explain the difference in Rifondazione’s vote for the Senate and Camera? Several possibilities. One: the franchise for the Camera is over-18s, for the Senate over-25s: the Communist vote is ageing. Two: ticket-splitting – people vote for Prodi’s coalition in the Camera then for Rifondazione in the Senate as a ‘conscience’ (Rifondazione made a big deal of the idea that a vote for them was a guarantee that Prodi would deliver a left-ish programme). Three: the united ‘Ulivo’ party made up of the Left Democrats and Margherita is more popular with voters than the two parties standing separately. Four: the Comunisti Italiani were on a joint list with the Greens, making Rifondazione the only straightforward Communist option for the Senate.