Internal fractures on the Italian far right will be difficult to mend

Meloni viewed the judiciary as an obstacle to fully implementing the repressive measures she considers part and parcel of her profile as a right-wing leader. The fact that a portion of her electorate chose not to follow her indicates the cultural fragility of her leadership.

Getting carried away by the thrill of victory is an understandable reaction. Those who committed themselves fully to a political battle whose outcome was uncertain deserve due recognition, along with the gratitude of those who simply exercised their right to vote hoping for the best. However, our current situation leaves little time for celebration. Instead, it requires an effort to look beyond the referendum's outcome and reflect on the future, for which the outlook is anything but reassuring.

In particular, I believe it is useful to examine the political motivations that drove the right and a segment of the reformist left to force a showdown over a constitutional reform pushed through by the governing majority at such a difficult time for our democracy.

To understand the referendum's genesis, it is essential to distinguish the objectives of the different political factions that supported the “Yes” vote. Within the right-wing coalition, the position of the late Silvio Berlusconi's Forza Italia must be separated from that of Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni's Brothers of Italy. In the former's case, the choice to back the referendum stems from an ideological legacy dating back to Berlusconi's 1994 “entry into the field” of politics. Even though he initially benefited from the Mani Pulite (Clean Hands) judicial investigations that swept away much of the party system that had anchored Italian democracy since the end of World War II, Berlusconi soon became the mouthpiece for a broad, potentially majority segment of public opinion that felt threatened by the growing political prominence of the judiciary in the early 1990s.

This was a socially heterogeneous alliance held together by an intolerance toward an institutional power perceived as an obstacle to the free unleashing of the “animal spirits” of a civil society that no longer recognized itself in the complex balances safeguarded by Italy's consensus-driven democratic model. As someone perennially under criminal investigation, Berlusconi had a vested interest in successfully redistributing the roles among the branches of government. He aimed to limit the autonomy of investigating magistrates by placing them under the control of the executive branch, whose discretionary power was to be expanded in deference to a new, predominantly majoritarian conception of democracy. In this battle, Berlusconi could also count on allies from the reformist left and the Radical Party, who had made legal guarantees and due process a defining part of their identity – partly on principle and partly out of self-interest. The goal of separating the career paths of investigating prosecutors and trial judges was the means to achieve this end.

From the perspective of this faction of the right, this change was achieved belatedly only through the recent Cartabia justice reform. The adopted solution, while reasonable, was nonetheless still unsatisfactory for those who wanted the investigative magistrates to be even less protected from government interference.

The objectives of this segment of the right were gradually adopted by Brothers of Italy, albeit with less conviction. In the political culture of the neo-fascist right, due process was historically accepted only in part, usually by figures from the legal profession and, to a lesser extent, the judiciary itself, and in a highly selective version: legal protection for white-collar defendants, repression for everyone else. Things changed slowly, and the process was only accelerated recently due to a political calculation by Meloni that has proven disastrous. 

The prime minister viewed the judiciary as an obstacle to fully implementing the repressive measures she considers part and parcel of her profile as a right-wing leader. This is a right wing that is cultivating the xenophobia that has found fuel in recent years among the insecurities of a middle class impoverished by an increasingly difficult economic situation. Seeking out this battle and winning it was supposed to be her way of securing the room for maneuver necessary to achieve a symbolic victory, one she could leverage to offset a political track record that doesn’t look very flattering from other perspectives. 

The fact that a portion of her electorate chose not to follow her – as polling data analyses show – is a significant indicator of the cultural fragility of her leadership. The resignations of some of the Brothers of Italy figures who put themselves out there the most during the referendum campaign, with largely counterproductive results, are a clear sign that Meloni has taken a hit and is trying to clean up the mess she helped create.

The fact remains that a fracture has emerged, and it will not be easy to heal. Turning the administration of justice into a political battleground has been one of the defining traits of the new American right since the 1970s, a trend that escalated to the point of triggering a full-blown institutional crisis during Donald Trump's second term. At the same time, it is not a given that the more conservative factions of Meloni's party are willing to follow her down this path.

Looking to the future, the opposition's role should be to defend the political nature of the Constitution – the legal document that gives shape to the political pact underlying our democratic form of government – without turning this battle into a partisan issue. This is no easy task, requiring clarity on principles and firmness in defending them in Parliament. The battle over the referendum was merely the first step.

© Il Manifesto Global