Italian government is characterized by parliamentary democracy and based on a multi-party system. Italy has been a democratic republic for more than sixty years, after the abolition of the monarchy by the popular referendum. The Council of Ministers led by the President of the Council of Ministers of Italy exercise executive power two parliamentary chambers and the government exercise while the legislative power. Italian parliament is characterized by bicamerality. Like in other parliamentary democracies, Italian judiciary is independent of both the executive and the legislature.
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| The emblem of the Republic of Italy. |
The President of Italy has powers based on many similarities with the king of Italy. His figure connects three political branches - he is the commander-in-chief of armed forces, he appoints the judiciary president and the executive, and he is elected by the lawmakers. His dominant role is to serve as a representative of the republic in whole, rather than supporting particular political tendencies.
The electoral body consists of 58 representatives of Italian regions and both houses of the Parliament. The presidential mandate lasts seven years and in order to be elected the president must win with a wide majority of votes. If that fails, the majority is reduced to one-half plus one vote as the ballots progress. Francesco Cossiga and Carlo Azeglio Ciampi were the only Presidents to win the mandate on the first ballot. No Italian president has ever won two mandates, although it is not forbidden by law.
His powers are predominantly latent - the President tries to keep a distance from any political debate but still serves as a institutional guarantee for other political figures. He also acts as a guardian of the Italian Constitution and thus has the power to reject any proposed laws by not signing them.
The president may resign for several reasons, but once he stops serving, he will be appointed Senator for life and called President Emeritus of the Republic. In the case of his absence, all presidential functions will be vested in the president of the Senate. The current Italian President is Giorgio Napolitano who was elected on May 10, 2006 after the fourth ballot.
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| Silvio Berlusconi, the current Italian Prime Minister. |
The Council of Minister and its President are appointed by the President of the Republic. The President of the Council (the Prime Minister) is in charge of advising the President of the Republic on how to compose the rest of the cabinet (the Council of Ministers). The Cabinet members are in charge of leading the departments of the government. The proposed Council has to win the vote of confidence from both houses of the parliament. The Council's dominant power is its ability to issue decrees that have to be confirmed in the parliament. The current Prime Minister is Silvio Berlusconi who effectively leads the Italian government through the cabinet.
The Parliament of Italy is a bicameral body consisting of 945 elected members. Parlamento Italiano has a lower house with 630 deputati Senate of the Republic with 315 senatori (members). A new law has been introduced in 2005 that assures proportional election in both houses. The parliament's dominant function is to represent the citizens in the republican institutions. Thus, all their actions have to be in the service of the citizens of Italy.
Other parliamentary prerogatives include exercising legislative power - in other words, making bills into law. No government can be in power without the support law of the Parliament, and it must resign in case it fails to receive the vote of confidence. The so-called perfect bicameralism was introduced in Italy in 1948 and it assures the same rights and powers to both houses of the Parliament. This set of rules have been established after the Second World War when fascist dictatorship had been dismissed.
The two houses act independently and never have joint sessions, except in rare occasions that are prescribed by the law.
Those occasions include the one where the both houses of the Parliament meet for a joint session in order to elect the President of the Republic, one third of the Consiglio Superiore della Magistratura and one third of the members of the Corte Costituzionale.
The House of Deputies consists of 630 members, and the Senate has 315 senators and a number of life senators that were once Presidents of Italy and the ones that contributed to the Republic to a great extent. There are currently seven life senators (three former presidents and the rest are apponited because of their high achievements in science or social fields).
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| Giorgio Napolitano, Italian President. |
The basis of the Italian judiciary is the Roman law that has been enriched with certain clauses from the Napoleonic codeadversary law system which relies on and a number of other statutes. It is an advocate's skills to represent their partyimpartial person (a judge) who tries to determine the actual state of the case. Italian law also relies on the inquisition which is based on the the courts' active involvement in determining the truth of the case. These two opposite law systems both have roots in old European traditions that gradually became dominant in the majority of countries. and it also involves an
The power of the judiciary to annul certain acts of the executive branch is only partial and it is being practiced only under certain conditions in the Corte Costituzionale (the Constitutional Court). Corte Constituzionale consists of fifteen judges led by the President of the Italian Constitutional Court. He is elected by the court itself while others are elected by the President of the Italian Republic (one third), the Parliament (one third) and the ordinary and administrative supreme courts (one third). The dominant function of the Constitutional Court is passing on the constitutionality of laws. This was introduced after World War II. The jurisdiction of the International Law of Justice has not been accepted by Italy.
In order to vote in parliamentary elections one must be an Italian citizen and be at least 18 years of age. However, to vote for the Senate, the voter must be at least 25 years old. Italian political situation changed dramatically in the period between 1992 and 1997. Numerous politicians, businessmen and administrators were undergoing investigations due to many scandals they were a part of. Other reasons of political landscape transformations include the shift from a proportional to an Additional Member System. While some parties emerged, others dissolved and disappeared from political horizon. The Socialists suddenly declined and the Christian Democratic party dissolved while the the Christian Democratic Center and the Italian People's Party arose.
A Christian-democratic, liberal and liberal-conservative Italian political party known under the name Forza Italia gained a wide support and became an integral part of the Italian political scene. Its president was a three-time Prime Minister, Silvio Berlusconi. It is generally considered to be a party that is different from others as it was formed by ex-Socialists, ex-liberals and ex-Christian Democrats,political figures that usually do not follow similar ideologies. The party's doctrine ranges from Social democracy to Libertarianism mixed with certain constituents of social market economy and Catholic school teaching. Their image is delineated by modernization and revitalization both national conservative and liberal conservative. Forza Italia is a member of the the European People's Party (EPP). that can be described as
Italian political scene has been dominated by two coalitions since the 1995 elections. The center-right coalition (the House of Freedoms) emerged from the regional election in 1995 while the center-left coalition (the Olive Tree coalition) was formed the following year in the national elections. This coalition was ideologically led by Romano Prodi, an Economics professor who was the head of the coalition in the period between 1996 and 1998. Its composition was dominated by following parties: DS (the Democrats of the Left, social-democratic); DL (Democracy is Freedom - The Daisy, progressive-centrist); SDI (Italian Democratic Socialists, social-democratic) and MRE (the European Republicans Movement, social-liberal).
The dominant party since 1945 has been the Christian Democrat party. This ensured political stability and prevented the Cold War equilibrium to be dissrupted. Italian political scene was further dominated by continuous efforts to keep the Italian Communist Party out of power. The party was a part of the government only once during 61 governments that have been elected in Italy.
Many believe that the large number of governments (fifty in fifty years) was a sign of its extreme political instability, but all facts point exactly the opposite - Italy was almost exclusiveley led by the Christian Democrat party and its allies that resulted in Italian government to be nicknamed imperfect bipolarism as right-wing and left-wing parties never alternated in government.
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| Palazzo del quirinale. (Photo by: unknown author) |
The Socialist party entered the government in the sixties while the attempts to include MSI (the fascist Italian Social Movement) resulted in riots and subsequently failed. The alliance between DC (Christian Democracy) and the Socialist party was encouraged by Aldo Moro, a left-leaning Christian democrat who later tried to incorporate the Communists in the government with a deal called historic compromise that resulted in murdering Aldo Moro in 1978. He was assasianted by the extremist left-wing terrorist organisation called Red Brigades.
Strategy of tension (strategia della tensione)
The period between 1969 and the end of the seventies is often referred to as the Years of Lead. This was the time of the extremist-left and extremist-right political terrorism that began with the bombing of the Piazza Fontana in the center of Milan. Twenty people were killed and the extensive several year-long investigation confirmed suspicions that the bombing is the act of the left-wing circles with the Maoist Student Movement that enjoyed support from many students in Milan. The bombing was a part of the strategy that had the goal of blaming right-wing terrorists for attacks. Other incidents included several assassinations by the leftist Red Brigades that wanted to prevent the inclusion of the Communist Party in the government by killing Aldo Moro, the dominant advocate for the Communists' incorporation in the government.
The Bologna Masacre was the largest and the last of the bombing, appearing in 1980 and resulting in 85 murders and 200 people being injured. The masacre was the work of the neofascist circles called P2 (Propaganda Due). There have been speculations that the strategy of tension is supported by the United States in order to stop Socialists entering the government.
Enrico Berlinguer was at the head of the Communist Party when it finally increased their popularity as the end of the lead years approached. Meanwhile, the Socialist Party with Bettino Craxi as their leader began criticizing the Communists in Italy and the Soviet Union to a greater extent than before. The Socialists were in favor of Ronald Reagan's positioning of Pershing missiles in Italy, which the majority of the Communist Party strongly disapproved of.
The Communist Party started losing popularity on the count of their inability to modernize and many of their former sympathizers started shifting to the Socialist Party which started favoring more moderate views that were closely resembling liberal-socialist. The only time that the Communists managed to surpass Christian Democrats was in the 1984 European elections that was partly a result of the recent Berlinguer's death which attracted a large number of sympathizers.
After the Chernobyl accident Italy decided to discontinue the production of energy using nuclear plants and the initial moratorium that was supoosed to last until 1993 was extended indefinitely. Following the Mani Pulite investigation which uncovered a vast array of corrupt political and economic actions, many seemingly immortal parties went into oblivion and some changed their names in order to appear more attractive. Socialist Party and the Christian Democrat Party disbanded while the Communists changed their name to Democratic Party of the Left and became the leading social Italian democratic party. This was the start of another Italian transformation called the Second Republic.
The citizens of Italy were exhausted and fed up with extensive corruption, nearly unsolvable political problems and many other issues that came out of the Tangentopoli - a political system based on corruption that swallowed Italy during the eighties.The country underwent big political changes following the 1993 referendum - its electoral system shifted from a proportional to an Additional Member System, many ministries were abolished or their names were changed.
The 1994 elections saw the rise of Silvio Berlusconi as a Prime Minister of Italy who was, however, forced to sign his resignation in December the same year after an Italian political party called Lega Nord per l'Indipendenza della Padania withdrew their support.The political scene was dominated by a large number oh center-left coalitions in the period between 1996 and 2001. The most influential one was the winner of the 1995 national election called the Olive Tree, led by Romano Prodi. The party was the third-longest to stay in power with a mandate that lasted for more than two years. The Democrats of the Left formed a new government which also had to resign because of their poor performance.
Berlusconi returned as the head of the government in 2001 as the leader of the 'Freedom House', a center-right coalition.
Prodi was the Prime Minister between 2006 and 2007 after the narrow victory of his l'Unione coalition that received more votes than Berlusconi's Casa delle Liberta. Due to the government crisis Prodi resigned. New election resulted in Berlusconi becoming the new Prime Minister who formed the Berlusconi IV Cabinet.
