National Alliance (Italy)
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Template:Infobox Italy Political Party
National Alliance (Alleanza Nazionale, AN) was created in 1994 by Gianfranco Fini, the former Youth Front leader of the Movimento Sociale Italiano (MSI) that was formed in 1946 by supporters of the executed dictator 'Il Duce' Benito Mussolini, Italy's former fascist leader.
AN was formed by Gianfranco Fini from most of MSI (he declared MSI dissolved in January 1995) and conservative elements of the former Democrazia Cristiana, which had disbanded in 1994 after two years of scandals and secessions due to corruption at its hightest levels.
Its electorate is mainly in the central-southern regions, but it also competes in the north-east with the Lega Nord, its ally in the ruling right center coalition Casa delle Libertà. The relationship of AN with Lega Nord can be tense at times, especially about issues of national unity, but the two parties share views on other issues such as immigration; AN's view is normally more moderate than Lega Nord's.
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Political program
AN’s political program emphasizes:
- Catholicism, close to the official Church position, also due to the participation of the former members of Democrazia Cristiana;
- law and order, especially laws aimed at controlling immigration and promoting national cohesion, also due to the partitipation of the members of the former MSI.
Distinguishing itself from the MSI, AN has used the expression "post-Fascist" to characterise itself, and proclaims its commitment to constitutionalism, democracy and political pluralism. However, while the uncontested leader Gianfranco Fini has been steering mostly clear of blunders to the fascist pasts, many high-ranking members (often dubbed colonels), such as Ignazio La Russa, have been caught in statements defending the combatants of the Repubblica Sociale Italiana, the German puppet state in northern Italy during World War II. Some proposals have been laid out by members of AN to make the status of RSI veterans equal to that of partisans, thus equating freedom fighters and Mussolini-loyalist fascist soldiers.
Alleanza Nazionale has distanced itself from Benito Mussolini and fascism and made efforts to improve relations with Jewish groups. With most hardliners leaving the party, it seeks to present itself as a respectable rightwing party.
Nearly two-thirds of the party's supporters approve of the capitalist system and hold favourable views on the privatisation of state industries.
History
In January 1995, as officially Gianfranco Fini proclaimed MSI's dissolution, and the foundation of the AN, he announced the abandonment MSI's ideological stances, symbols, gestures and salutes that had closely identified it with the Mussolinian past.
Despite Fini’s success in distancing the party's image from the former MSI, including the suppression of anti-Jewish comments in public and the party organ "Il Secolo d’Italia", there remain contradictions within the party, mainly in regard to its fascist past.
A rare anti-Semitic manifestation was a March 1999 leaflet produced by the AN’s Julius Evola Club in Sestu (Cagliari). The leaflet quoted alleged Talmudic passages as proof that Jews compared Gentiles to beasts. In response to protests, the local AN president claimed that the references were intended to be “neither racist, nor anti-democratic nor anti-Jewish”.
The AN club in Fiumicino (close to Rome), called for a square to be named after fascist leader Ettore Muti, while the president of the region of Latium, Francesco Storace, asked that each city dedicate a street to Giorgio Almirante, the predecessor of Fini as the leader of the now-defunct MSI, and a criminal of war during World War II.
When Gianfranco Fini visited Israel in late November 2003 in the function of Italian deputy prime minister, Fini labeled the racial laws issued by the fascist regime in 1938 as “infamous”. He also referred to the RSI as belonging to the most shameful pages of the past and considered fascism part of an era of “absolute evil” .
As a result, Alessandra Mussolini, the granddaughter of the former fascist dictator Benito Mussolini, and some hardliners left the party; A. Mussolini stated that "absolute evil" for her was piazzale Loreto, the square in Milan where Mussolini's remains were shown to the public in the final days of World War II.
Government participation
The party has taken part in the first two House of Freedoms coalition governments (1994 and 2001-) of prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, in the second of which Fini is deputy prime minister and, from November 2004, foreign minister.
In 1998, it had a membership of 485,657 in 11,539 branches in 1998, 89 deputies and 41 senators in the Italian parliament and nine Euro-Parliament members.
The AN suffered a 5 percent loss in the 1999 elections to the European Parliament, obtaining only 10.3 percent of the vote. It recovered somewhat in the April regional elections, gaining 12.8 percent nationwide (well over 20 percent in Rome and Lazio).
In the May 2001 national elections AN obtained 96 seats out of 630 in the Chamber of Deputies and 46 seats out of 324 in the Senate. The party lost a few key seats in the 2003 local elections such as the Province of Rome, but its position remained firm. The party obtained 11.5 percent of the vote and 9 seats in the June 2004 European Parliament elections. In the 2005 regional elections AN lost almost all the remaining key seats, such as the Region of Lazio.
In the European Parliament, its MEPs work within the group of the Union for a Europe of Nations.
External link
- Alleanza Nazionale web site (http://www.alleanzanazionale.it/an/default.asp)
- Azione Giovani web site (http://www.azionegiovani.org)
- Azione Giovani Isola d'Ischia web site (http://www.skugnizzo.it/agischia)
- Continuity or change in the ideology of the Alleanza Nazionale (http://www.tau.ac.il/Anti-Semitism/asw97-8/sznajder.html)
- The annual report of Anti-semetism worldwide (http://www.tau.ac.il/Anti-Semitism/annual-report.html), 1997 (http://www.tau.ac.il/Anti-Semitism/asw97-8/italy.html), 1999 (http://www.tau.ac.il/Anti-Semitism/asw99-2000/italy.htm), 2003 (http://www.tau.ac.il/Anti-Semitism/asw2003-4/italy.htm) and between.de:Alleanza Nazionale
fr:Alliance nationale it:Alleanza Nazionale sv:Alleanza Nazionale ja:国民同盟