The
Communist Refoundation Party (
Partito
della Rifondazione Comunista, PRC) is a
communist Italian political party.
Its current secretary is
Paolo
Ferrero.
The party participates both in the
Party of the European Left (of
which
Fausto Bertinotti, a senior
PRC member, has been the first president) and the
European Anticapitalist Left.
Its
members in the European Parliament
sat in the European United
Left–Nordic Green Left group.
History
Foundation
In 1991, when the
Italian
Communist Party (PCI), led by
Achille Occhetto, became the
Democratic Party of the Left
(PDS), dissidents led by
Armando
Cossutta launched the Communist Refoundation Party. In the same
year
Proletarian Democracy, a
far left outfit, merged into the new party,
which aimed to unite all Italian communists.
The first secretary of the PRC was
Sergio Garavini, who was replaced in 1994 by
Fausto Bertinotti, a long-time
CGIL trade
union leader, who had left PDS only some months before. The
leadership of Bertinotti was a turning point for the party, which
jumped to 8.6% of vote in the
1996 general election.
The centre-left
The party supported
Prodi I Cabinet
until 1998, when Bertinotti's Communists turned to opposition and
the government lost its majority in Parliament. However this
decision was divisive also in Bertinotti's camp, where a group of
dissidents, led by President of the party Armando Cossutta, split
off and founded a rival communist outfit, the
Party of Italian Communists
(
Partito dei Comunisti Italiani, PdCI), which joined
Massimo D'Alema's government.
In October
2004 the PRC joined the centre-left
opposition and in April 2005, Nichi
Vendola, an openly gay politician who is one of the emerging
leaders of the party, was elected President of traditionally
conservative Apulia
Region, due
to the support of the whole centre-left and after a primary
election, which saw Vendola beat a centrist
opponent. He is the only regional President belonging to the
PRC.
After the
2006 general
election in which centre-left
The Union coalition won
narrowly over the centre-right
House
of Freedoms coalition, party leader Fausto Bertinotti was
elected President of the
Chamber of Deputies, and was
replaced by
Franco Giordano as party
secretary. The PRC joined the
Prodi II
Cabinet, which included
Paolo
Ferrero, a long-time member of the party, as Minister of Social
Solidarity.
The decision to participate in the centre-left coalition
government, and in particular the party's decision to vote to
refinance the Italian military presence in Afghanistan and send
troops to Lebanon attracted criticism from other sections of the
European far left and provoked the splits of many groups, notably
the
Communist Workers'
Party, the
Communist
Alternative Party and
Critical
Left.
Out of Parliament
In December 2007 the party took part in the creation of
The Left – The Rainbow with
the
Party of Italian
Communists, the
Federation
of the Greens and
Democratic
Left. This coalition was comprehensively defeated in the
2008 general
election: it won only 3.1% of the vote, compared to 10.2% won
by the two communist parties and the Greens two years before.
In April 2008, following the severe defeat of the party in the
2008 general
election, a group of former
Bertinottiani, composed basically of
former members of
Proletarian
Democracy and led by Paolo Ferrero and
Giovanni Russo Spena, allied with the
other minority factions in order to force secretary Franco Giordano
to resign. They criticized The Left – The Rainbow alliance and the
political line of Fausto Bertinotti.
In the July congress the internal left-wing prevailed over
Bertinottiani and Paolo Ferrero was elected new secretary.
He was supported by barely 53% of the party delegates and the party
was in fact very divided on factional and regional lines with
Vendola, the standard-bearer of
Bertinottiani, accusing
Northern delegates of having absorbed
leghismo and stating that "it was the end of
the party I knew".
On 24 January 2009 the group around Vendola, including Giordano and
with the silent support of Bertinotti, finally decided to leave the
party and to transform their faction into a party under the name
Movement for the Left (MpS).
The goal of MpS will be that of forming a new party with other
left-wing groups, including the
Federation of the Greens,
Democratic Left,
Unite the Left
(splinters from the PdCI) and
United
to the Left. However some members of RpS, including
Giusto Catania,
Milziade Caprili and
Tommaso Sodano, decided not to leave the PRC
and re-organized themselves into
To the Left with
Refoundation.
After the split of RpS/MpS, the PRC formed a joint list known as
Anticapitalist List with the
PdCI,
Socialism 2000 and
United Consumers for the
2009 European
Parliament election. Originally also
Critical Left was to join, but finally chose
to step aside. The list received just 3.4% of the national vote and
failed to return any MEPs.
Factions
The majority of the party following the October 2004 congress was
led by
Fausto Bertinotti (59.2%)
and it views itself as the party representing the anti-
globalization movement in the Italian
political scene. Nothwithstanding, during that congress the party
included some recognzed factions, which opposed the line imposed by
Bertinotti: the
hardline communists of
Being Communists (26.2%), what remains of
the late faction led by
Armando
Cossutta, and
trotskyists of
Critical Left,
Communist Project and
HammerSickle (14.6% altogether).
Communist Project left the party shortly after the
2006 general election because
of its opposition to the participation of the party in
The Union and
Prodi II Cabinet: a group led by
Marco Ferrando formed the
Communist Workers' Party,
while others, led by
Francesco Ricci
formed the
Communist
Alternative Party. A tiny minority of the former Communist
Project decided not to leave the party and gathered in a new
faction named
Counter-current.
In February 2007 Senator
Franco
Turigliatto, one of the leaders of Critical Left along with
Salvatore Cannavò, voted
against two motions on the government's foreign policy, leading
Romano Prodi to temporarily resign as
Prime Minister. In April Turigliatto was expelled from the party
and thus Critical Left suspended from it. In December the group
officially left PRC in order to be transformed into a party.
At that point Being Communists suffered a split by those who
opposed the decision of leader
Claudio
Grassi to vote in favour of the expulsion of Senator
Turigliatto from the party: a group, led by
Fosco Giannini, left the faction and launched
The Ernesto, without leaving the party
itself.
In April 2008, following the severe defeat of the party in the
2008 general
election, a group of former
Bertinottiani, composed basically of
former members of
Proletarian
Democracy and led by
Paolo Ferrero
and
Giovanni Russo Spena,
allied with the other minority factions in order to force Secretary
Franco Giordano to resign. They
criticized
The Left – The
Rainbow alliance and the political line of Fausto
Bertinotti.
In the 24-27 July 2008 congress the
Refoundation in Movement motion of
Ferrero and Grassi (40.1%) faced the bulk of
Bertinottiani, who organized themselves around the motion
titled
Manifesto for the Refoundation (47.6%) with
Nichi Vendola as standard-bearer. The
Ernesto of Giannini and Counter-current (7.7%), HammerSickle of
Claudio Bellotti (3.2%) and a minor
group of former
Bertinottiani called "Disarm, Renew,
Refound" (1.5%) decided to join forces with the Ferrero-Grassi
group. Vendola, defeated by Ferrero, announced the creation of a
new minority faction,
Refoundation for the Left
(RpS).
On 24 January 2009 that faction finally left the party in order to
form the
Movement for the
Left. However several members of RpS led by
Augusto Rocchi decided to stay in the PRC and
launched
To the Left with
Refoundation.
Popular support
The electoral results of the Communist Refoundation Party 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 |
5.9 |
9.3 |
10.3 |
4.6 |
5.5 |
5.9 |
6.6 |
6.4 |
5.9 |
| Lombardy |
5.1 |
7.7 |
6.8 |
4.0 |
6.4 |
5.0 |
5.6 |
5.7 |
5.5 |
| Veneto |
4.4 |
5.0 |
5.3 |
2.8 |
3.0 |
3.9 |
3.9 |
3.5 |
3.9 |
| Emilia-Romagna |
6.6 |
7.6 |
8.3 |
5.0 |
5.8 |
5.5 |
6.3 |
5.7 |
5.6 |
| Tuscany |
10.1 |
11.1 |
12.5 |
7.4 |
6.7 |
6.9 |
9.1 |
8.2 |
8.2 |
| Lazio |
6.6 |
9.2 |
10.4 |
4.9 |
5.4 |
5.2 |
7.1 |
5.9 |
7.4 |
| Campania |
6.9 |
9.2 |
9.1 |
4.0 |
3.8 |
4.8 |
6.0 |
4.1 |
6.1 |
| Apulia |
7.0 |
8.1 |
7.5 |
3.3 |
3.6 |
4.7 |
6.0 |
5.1 |
5.7 |
| Calabria |
9.3 |
8.7 |
10.0 |
4.3 |
3.0 |
3.4 |
5.8 |
5.1 |
6.0 |
| Sicily |
- |
4.3 (1996) |
7.0 |
2.2 |
2.4 (2001) |
3.2 |
3.6 |
- (2006) |
3.2 |
| ITALY |
6.1 |
- |
8.6 |
4.3 |
- |
5.0 |
6.1 |
- |
5.8 |
|
Leadership
- Party Leader in the Chamber of Deputies: Lucio Magri (1992–1994), Famiano Crucianelli (1994–1995),
Oliviero Diliberto (1995–1998),
Franco Giordano (1998–2006),
Gennaro Migliore (2006–2008)
- Party Leader in the Senate:
Lucio Libertini (1992–1993),
Ersilia Salvato (1993–1995),
Fausto Marchetti (1995–1996),
Luigi Marino (1996–1998), Giovanni Russo Spena (1998–2001),
Giorgio Malentacchi (2001–2002),
Luigi Malabarba (2002–2006),
Giovanni Russo Spena
(2006–2008)
- Party
Leader in the European
Parliament: Luigi Vinci
(1994–2004), Roberto Musacchio
(2004–...)
Notes
-
http://www.corriere.it/politica/08_luglio_27/vendola_ritiro_8b3b2250-5bb4-11dd-b836-00144f02aabc.shtml
-
http://www.asca.it/news-PRC__SERVE_UNA_NUOVA_SINISTRA__VENDOLA_CONSUMA_LA_SCISSIONE_(IL_PUNTO)-804738-ORA-.html
-
http://www.repubblica.it/2009/01/sezioni/politica/liberazione-ferrero/vendola-chianciano/vendola-chianciano.html
- http://www.asinistraconrifondazione.org/b/
-
http://www.repubblica.it/2009/01/sezioni/politica/elezioni-2009/pdc-prc/pdc-prc.html
- http://www.manifestoperlarifondazione.net/?p=194
- http://elezionistorico.interno.it/index.php
- PRC formed a joint-list with SDI, IdV, UDEUR, the
Greens and PdCI in order to surpass the 5%
threshold. The list, named Uniti per la Sicilia, scored
5.1% and 4 regional deputies were elected, 3 SDI and 1 IdV.
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