National Alliance (Italy)
National Alliance Alleanza Nazionale | |
---|---|
Abbreviation | AN |
Leader |
|
Founded |
|
Dissolved | 22 March 2009 |
Preceded by | Italian Social Movement[1] |
Merged into | The People of Freedom |
Newspaper | Secolo d'Italia |
Student wing | Student Action |
Youth wing | Youth Action |
Membership (2004) | 250,000[2] |
Ideology | |
Political position | Right-wing[1] |
National affiliation |
|
European affiliation | Alliance for Europe of the Nations |
European Parliament group | Union for Europe of the Nations |
National Alliance (
, during a convention inGianfranco Fini was the leader of AN from its foundation through 2008, after being elected President of the Chamber of Deputies. Fini was succeeded by Ignazio La Russa, who managed the merger of the party with Forza Italia (FI) into The People of Freedom (PdL) in 2009.[11] A group of former AN members, led by La Russa, left PdL in 2012 to launch the Brothers of Italy (FdI), while others remained in the PdL and were among the founding members of the relaunched Forza Italia (FI) in 2013.
History
Foundation
National Alliance was launched in 1994 when the
The AN logo followed a template very similar to that of the
Government participation
The party was part of all three House of Freedoms coalition governments led by Silvio Berlusconi. Fini was nominated Deputy Prime Minister after the 2001 Italian general election and was Foreign Minister from November 2004 to May 2006.
When Fini visited Israel in late November 2003 in the function of Italian Deputy Prime Minister, he labelled the racial laws issued by the Italian fascism regime in 1938 as "infamous", as also Giorgio Almirante, historic leader of MSI, had done before.[12] He also referred to the Italian Social Republic as belonging to the most shameful pages of the past, and considered fascism part of an era of "absolute evil", something which was hardly acceptable to the few remaining hardliners of the party. As a result, Alessandra Mussolini, the granddaughter of the former fascist dictator Benito Mussolini, who had been at odds with the party on a number of issues for a long time, and some hardliners left the party and formed Social Action.[7][13]
In occasion of the
The People of Freedom
In November 2007, Silvio Berlusconi announced that Forza Italia would have soon merged or transformed into The People of Freedom (PdL) party.[14][15][16]
After the sudden fall of the
Ideology
National Alliance's political programme emphasised:
- traditional values, being often close to the position of the Catholic Church, despite some social liberal and secularattitudes;
- law and order, especially laws aimed at controlling immigration and implementing punishment;
- support for Israel,[13] the United States and European integration;[20]
- prohibition of all drugs, including marijuana.
Distinguishing itself from the MSI, the party distanced itself from
Although the party approved the
Regarding institutional reforms, the party was a long-time supporter of
Fini, a moderniser who saw Nicolas Sarkozy and David Cameron as role-models, impressed an ambitious political line to the party, combining the pillars of conservative ideology like security, family values, and patriotism with a more progressive approach in other areas, such as stem cell research and supporting voting rights for legal aliens. Some of these positions were not shared by many members of the party, most of whom staunchly opposed stem cell research and artificial insemination.[13]
Factions
National Alliance was a heterogeneous political party and within it members were divided in different factions, some of them very organised:
- liberal-conservativestances.
- New Alliance (Nuova Alleanza), formerly called Right and Freedom (Destra e Libertà), headed by Altero Matteoli and Adolfo Urso, was formed by the staunchest supporters of Gianfranco Fini within the party and supported a liberal political agenda.
- Social Right (Destra Sociale), led by Gianni Alemanno, advocated a more social approach to economic policy and was considered at the right of the party. It had close ties with the General Labour Union.
- D-Destra, led by Francesco Storace, was the most conservative component of the party, proud of the MSI's tradition and in open opposition to Fini. Formed as a split from the Social Right, the group finally left AN and launched The Right in July 2007.
- Christian-democraticfaction.
In the party there was also a group named Ethic-Religious Council, whose board members included Gaetano Rebecchini (founder, ex-DC), Riccardo Pedrizzi (president), Franco Tofoni (vice-president), Luigi Gagliardi (secretary-general), Alfredo Mantovano, Antonio Mazzocchi, and Riccardo Migliori. This was not a faction but an official organism within the party and expressed the official position of the party on ethical and religious matters. Sometimes the group criticised Fini for his liberal views on abortion, artificial insemination, and stem-cell research, which led some notable ex-DC members as Publio Fiori to leave the party. Some members of the council, such as Pedrizzi and Mantovano, were described as members of an unofficial Catholic Right faction.
Popular support
The party had roughly 10–15% support across Italy, having its strongholds in Central Italy, as well as Southern Italy (Lazio 18.6%, Umbria 15.2%, Marche 14.3%, Abruzzo 14.3%, Apulia 13.2%, Sardinia 12.9%, Tuscany 12.6%, and Campania 12.6% in the 2006 Italian general election), scoring badly in Lombardy (10.2%) and Sicily (10.9%), while competing in the North-East (Friuli-Venezia Giulia 15.5% and Veneto 11.3%).
The party had a good showing in the first general election in which it took part, achieving 13.5% of the popular vote in 1994 Italian general election). In the 1996 Italian general election, when Fini tried for the first time to replace Silvio Berlusconi as leader of the centre-right, the party grew its support to 15.7%. From that moment the party suffered an electoral decline but remained the third force of Italian politics.
In the 2006 Italian general election, the final election in which the party participated on its own account, AN won 12.3% of the vote, securing 71 seats in the Chamber of Deputies and 41 in the Senate. In the 2008 Italian general election, the party had 90 deputies (excluding Fiamma Nirenstein, Alessandro Ruben, and Souad Sbai, whose election was supported both by Forza Italia and National Alliance),[22] and 48 senators,[23] who were elected as part of a joint election list under the banner of The People of Freedom.
The electoral results of National Alliance in general (Chamber of Deputies) and European Parliament elections since 1994 are shown in the chart below.
Graphs are unavailable due to technical issues. There is more info on Phabricator and on MediaWiki.org. |
The electoral results of National Alliance in the 10 most populated regions of Italy are shown in the table below.
1994 general | 1995 regional | 1996 general | 1999 European | 2000 regional | 2001 general | 2004 European | 2005 regional | 2006 general | |
Piedmont | 8.3 | 11.2 | 12.1 | 7.5 | 11.9 | 9.2 | 8.8 | 9.5 | 11.8 |
Lombardy | 5.8 | 10.0 | 9.0 | 6.0 | 9.7 | 8.6 | 7.2 | 8.7 | 10.2 |
Veneto | 7.7 | 10.7 | 11.7 | 8.3 | 9.8 | 8.5 | 9.0 | 8.1 | 11.3 |
Emilia-Romagna | 9.0 | 10.3 | 11.5 | 8.6 | 11.4 | 9.7 | 8.4 | 8.9 | 10.2 |
Tuscany | 10.9 | 13.1 | 15.8 | 10.9 | 14.9 | 13.0 | 10.9 | 10.9 | 12.6 |
Lazio | 25.3 | 24.5 | 28.9 | 20.3 | 23.1 | 20.4 | 18.4 | 23.9[a] | 18.6 |
Campania | 20.3 | 18.3 | 18.7 | 10.7 | 11.2 | 13.1 | 13.2 | 10.6 | 12.6 |
Apulia | 27.5[b] | 20.4 | 17.9 | 12.7 | 15.5 | 15.3 | 16.0 | 12.1 | 13.2 |
Calabria | 17.2 | 16.3 | 23.4 | 10.2 | 10.4 | 15.2 | 15.5 | 9.9 | 11.0 |
Sicily | 14.0 | 14.1 (1996) | 16.4 | 12.1 | 11.3 (2001) | 10.7 | 14.5 | 10.6 (2006) | 10.9 |
ITALY | 13.5 | - | 15.7 | 10.3 | - | 12.0 | 11.3 | - | 12.3 |
Election results
Italian Parliament
Election year | Votes | % | Seats | +/– | Leader |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
1994 | 5,214,133 (3rd) | 13.5 | 109 / 630
|
– | Gianfranco Fini |
1996 | 5,870,491 (3rd) | 15.7 | 93 / 630
|
17 | Gianfranco Fini |
2001 | 4,463,205 (5th) | 12.0 | 99 / 630
|
7 | Gianfranco Fini |
2006 | 4,706,654 (3rd) | 12.3 | 71 / 630
|
18 | Gianfranco Fini |
Election year | Votes | % | Seats | +/– | Leader |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
1994 | with PBG | – | 48 / 315
|
– | Gianfranco Fini |
1996 | with PpL | – | 43 / 315
|
5 | Gianfranco Fini |
2001 | with CdL | – | 45 / 315
|
2 | Gianfranco Fini |
2006 | 4,234,693 (#3) | 12.2 | 41 / 315
|
4 | Gianfranco Fini |
European Parliament
Election year | Votes | % | Seats | +/– | Leader |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
1994 | 4,108,670 (3rd) | 12.5 | 11 / 87
|
– | Gianfranco Fini |
1999 | 3,202,895 (3rd) | 10.3 | 9 / 87
|
2 | Gianfranco Fini |
2004 | 3,736,606 (3rd) | 11.5 | 9 / 78
|
– | Gianfranco Fini |
Leadership
- President: Gianfranco Fini (1995–2008), Ignazio La Russa (acting, 2008–2009)
- Coordinator: Maurizio Gasparri (1995–1998), Ignazio La Russa (2003–2005)
- Spokesman: Francesco Storace (1995–1997), Adolfo Urso (1997–2001), Antonio Landolfi (2001–2005), Andrea Ronchi (2005–2009)
- Head of Political Secretariat: Donato Lamorte (1995–2002), Andrea Ronchi (2002–2004), Carmelo Briguglio (2002–2004), Donato Lamorte (2004–2009)
- President of National Assembly: Domenico Fisichella (1995–2005), Marcello Perina (2005–2006), Francesco Servello (2006–2009)
- Organizational Coordinator: Giuseppe Tatarella (1995–1998), Altero Matteoli (1998–2002), Donato Lamorte (2002–2004), Italo Bocchino (2004–2005), Marco Martinelli (2005–2009)
- Administrative Secretary: Francesco Pontone (1995–2009)
- Party Leader at the PdL's group, 2008–2009)
- Party Leader at the PdL's group, 2008–2009)
- Party Leader at the European Parliament: Cristiana Muscardini (1994–2004), Roberta Angelilli (2004–2009)
Symbols
-
1995–2009
See also
Notes
- ^ Combined result of National Alliance (16.9%) and Lista Storace (7.0%), which was the personal list of AN regional leader Francesco Storace.
- ^ Forza Italia failed to present a list and thus most centre-right voters voted for National Alliance.
References
- ^ ISBN 9780415344616
- ^ "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 10 November 2013. Retrieved 10 November 2013.
{{cite web}}
: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link) - ^ Tarchi, Marco (2007), "Recalcitrant Allies: The Conflicting Foreign Policy Agenda of the Alleanza Nazionale and the Lega Nord", Europe for the Europeans, Ashgate, p. 188
- ^ Mareš, Miroslav (2006), Transnational Networks of Extreme Right Parties in East Central Europe: Stimuli and Limits of Cross-Border Cooperation (PDF), p. 4, archived from the original (PDF) on 18 August 2011
- ISBN 9780415358279.
Yet this is not to say that the fascist heritage in the new 'post-fascist' AN faded altogether. At least at the beginning, Fini had a double standard of communication, one for inside the party, stressing continuity with fascism, one for outside the party, stressing change.
- ^ Oreste Massari, I partiti politici nelle democrazie contemporanee, Laterza, Roma-Bari 2004, p. 90
- ^ a b c d Luciano Bardi - Piero Ignazi - Oreste Massari, I partiti italiani, Egea 2007, pp. 151, 173n.
- ^ Chiara Moroni, Da Forza Italia al Popolo della Libertà, Carocci, Roma 2008, pp. 75-77
- ISBN 9780415285568.
- ^ Catellani, Patrizia; Milesi, Patrizia; Crescentini, Alberto (2006). One root, different branches: Identity, injustice and schisms. Routledge. p. 204.
{{cite book}}
:|work=
ignored (help) - ISBN 978-0-313-39181-1.
- ^ Il Domenicale
- ^ a b c d Piero Ignazi, Partiti politici in Italia, Il Mulino, Bologna 2008, pp. 27-31.
- ^ Sky tg24 – Tutte le notizie in formato video Archived 15 June 2009 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ «Oggi nasce il partito del popolo italiano». Corriere della Sera
- ^ Prodi: grandi coalizioni non servono. Veltoni vedra' Fini e Berlusconi Archived 17 December 2007 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ «Via l'Ici e stretta sulle intercettazioni» Corriere della Sera
- ^ Svolta di Berlusconi, arriva il Pdl: "Forza Italia-An sotto stesso simbolo" - LASTAMPA.it
- ^ Mussolini's heirs merge with Silvio Berlusconi's Forza Italia party The Telegraph. 23 March 2009
- ^ a b c d Broder, David (17 July 2020). "The Rise of Italy's Populist Right Is a Bleak Warning From the Recent Past". Jacobin. Retrieved 18 July 2020.
- .
- ^ Elenco Deputati PDL in XVI Legislatura (in grassetto quelli in quota An) Archived 1 October 2008 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ Elenco Senatori PDL in XVI Legislatura (in grassetto quelli in quota An) Archived 21 November 2011 at the Wayback Machine
External links
- Youth wing
- Factions
- Stephen Roth Institute