Fausto Bertinotti
Encyclopedia
Fausto Bertinotti is an Italian
politician
and former leader of the Partito della Rifondazione Comunista. On April 29, 2006, after the center-left coalition's victory in the Italian general election, he was chosen by the new parliament as President of the Chamber of Deputies
(the Italian Parliament Lower House).
After completing his education in Milan
, he joined the CGIL (General Confederation of Italian Labour) in 1964, becoming secretary of the local organisation of the Federazione Italiana degli Operai Tessili (Italian Textile Workers Federation). Three years later, he became president of the labour chamber of Novara
. From 1975 to 1985 he was regional secretary of the CGIL in Piedmont
. In 1972 he joined the Italian Communist Party
(PCI), and soon afterwards became the leader of the most left-wing tendency in the CGIL, called "Essere Sindacato" (to be a union), which harshly criticised the consensus politics of the majority.
In this role he took part in the great workers' struggles of the time, including that of the Fiat
workers which ended with a 35-day occupation of the car manufacturer's factory. A committed and hardline trade unionist, Bertinotti affirmed the need for the working class to strike against the "injustices of the boss class", thereby attracting the anger of more moderate trade unionists. At that time he first disagreed with Sergio Cofferati
, beginning a polemic which has continued, albeit in different forms, until the present.
In 1994, the year in which he was elected to the secretariat of the Rifondazione Comunista and to the Italian and European parliaments, Bertinotti resigned all his trade union positions. He remains interested in economics
and workers' rights, and has been offered the position of Minister for Labour on several occasions by leaders of the Italian centre-left, but he has always declined it.
and then the Italian Socialist Party of Proletarian Unity
before joining the Italian Communist Party, in which he was a member of Pietro Ingrao
's tendency.
Fausto Bertinotti was opposed to the dissolution of the PCI in 1991 and the creation by its reformist majority of the Democratic Party of the Left
(PDS). Nevertheless, he did not immediately join the radical minority in the Partito della Rifondazione Comunista (PRC). He finally broke with PDS leader Achille Occhetto
in 1994 and became secretary of the PRC, replacing Sergio Garavini
who had led the party since its foundation.
Bertinotti's accession to the leadership was organised by Armando Cossutta
, who probably wished to increase his own prestige and power within the party. In time, however, Bertinotti succeeded in winning over the majority of the party base, aided in this by his charismatic oratory.
He was confirmed in the position of party secretary at the third, fourth, fifth and sixth congresses of Rifondazione. At the last, however, his final document received less support than usual, gaining only 52% of delegates' votes. This close result has led many political commentators to suggest that he may be replaced as secretary of Rifondazione Comunista by Nichi Vendola
.
As an ally of the "progressives" alliance in the 1994 general election, he agreed the "withdrawal" pact with the Ulivo coalition: Rifondazione would refrain from running candidates in certain electoral districts and advise its voters to support the candidates of the centre-left. The centre-left would reciprocate in other constituencies.
Thanks to this tactic, the Ulivo coalition won the elections and Prodi became prime minister. Bertinotti's relationship with the centre-left leader was not an easy one, and in 1998, when Prodi proposed a new budget, incorporating a vote of confidence in his government, Bertinotti and the Rifondazione voted against it, causing the fall of the government. Cossutta's faction refused to vote against the government and left the party. They subsequently established a new party, the Party of Italian Communists
(Partito dei Comunisti Italiani, PdCI).
The PRC, weakened by this split, had a poor result in the 1999 European elections, but Bertinotti was nevertheless elected to the European Parliament
.
Since 2001, Bertinotti has led the party to take more radical, mass-movement positions close to those of the growing alternative globalisation movement, a stance which is opposed by the party's Trotskyist factions.
From 2002 on, there has been some reconciliation between Rifondazione and the centre-left. The two tendencies have concluded alliances for both local and European elections in 2004 (in which latter the PRC gained 6.1% of the vote), as well as the regional elections of 2005, in which the centre-left coalition, rechristened L'Unione gained a clear victory.
Bertinotti declared himself willing to see Prodi chosen without primary elections as the left's joint candidate for the post of prime minister, but when Prodi accepted that primary elections would be necessary, he proposed himself as a candidate. The elections have been held on 16 October 2005 and apart from Bertinotti and Prodi, Antonio Di Pietro
, Alfonso Pecoraro Scanio
, Clemente Mastella
, Ivan Scalfarotto and Simona Panzino were the candidates. Prodi won with absolute majority, but Bertinotti ranked second with 16% of preferences.
Bertinotti was elected member of the European Parliament in 2004 on the Rifondazione Comunista list, in which he was candidate in all five electoral districts, receiving some 380,000 votes in all Italy. He served as member of the European Left group in the parliament, sitting on the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs
. He was a substitute for the Committee on Legal Affairs
and a member of the Delegation to the EU-Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia Joint Parliamentary Committee.
After the general election
held on April 9 and 10, 2006, which saw a narrow victory of The Union, Fausto Bertinotti was elected Speaker of the Chamber of Deputies, and thus left the party leadership, being replaced on May 7 by Franco Giordano
.
” public image, mainly conveyed by his French R, his good manners and his elegant sweaters. His fascination with expensive cashmere
is also part of his idiosyncrasy. This bourgeois look has often been seen as being in ironic contrast with his far left
politics.
Bertinotti has recently been the subject of an internal controversy by former members of his party, notably Marco Ferrando
. Bertinotti's position on Italian military presence in Afghanistan has in fact reversed as he became President of the Chamber of Deputies. Formerly contrary, he pushed his party to vote positively to the re-founding of the mission itself, presumably to avoid putting his coalition into trouble.
Politics of Italy
The politics of Italy is conducted through a parliamentary, democratic republic with a multi-party system. Executive power is exercised collectively by the Council of Ministers, which is led by the President of the Council of Ministers, referred to as "Presidente del Consiglio" in Italian...
politician
Politician
A politician, political leader, or political figure is an individual who is involved in influencing public policy and decision making...
and former leader of the Partito della Rifondazione Comunista. On April 29, 2006, after the center-left coalition's victory in the Italian general election, he was chosen by the new parliament as President of the Chamber of Deputies
Italian Chamber of Deputies
The Italian Chamber of Deputies is the lower house of the Parliament of Italy. It has 630 seats, a plurality of which is controlled presently by liberal-conservative party People of Freedom. Twelve deputies represent Italian citizens outside of Italy. Deputies meet in the Palazzo Montecitorio. A...
(the Italian Parliament Lower House).
Trade unionist
Bertinotti was born to Enrico Bertinotti, a railroad engineer, and Rosa Bertinotti.After completing his education in Milan
Milan
Milan is the second-largest city in Italy and the capital city of the region of Lombardy and of the province of Milan. The city proper has a population of about 1.3 million, while its urban area, roughly coinciding with its administrative province and the bordering Province of Monza and Brianza ,...
, he joined the CGIL (General Confederation of Italian Labour) in 1964, becoming secretary of the local organisation of the Federazione Italiana degli Operai Tessili (Italian Textile Workers Federation). Three years later, he became president of the labour chamber of Novara
Novara
Novara is the capital city of the province of Novara in the Piedmont region in northwest Italy, to the west of Milan. With c. 105,000 inhabitants, it is the second most populous city in Piedmont after Turin. It is an important crossroads for commercial traffic along the routes from Milan to Turin...
. From 1975 to 1985 he was regional secretary of the CGIL in Piedmont
Piedmont
Piedmont is one of the 20 regions of Italy. It has an area of 25,402 square kilometres and a population of about 4.4 million. The capital of Piedmont is Turin. The main local language is Piedmontese. Occitan is also spoken by a minority in the Occitan Valleys situated in the Provinces of...
. In 1972 he joined the Italian Communist Party
Italian Communist Party
The Italian Communist Party was a communist political party in Italy.The PCI was founded as Communist Party of Italy on 21 January 1921 in Livorno, by seceding from the Italian Socialist Party . Amadeo Bordiga and Antonio Gramsci led the split. Outlawed during the Fascist regime, the party played...
(PCI), and soon afterwards became the leader of the most left-wing tendency in the CGIL, called "Essere Sindacato" (to be a union), which harshly criticised the consensus politics of the majority.
In this role he took part in the great workers' struggles of the time, including that of the Fiat
Fiat
FIAT, an acronym for Fabbrica Italiana Automobili Torino , is an Italian automobile manufacturer, engine manufacturer, financial, and industrial group based in Turin in the Italian region of Piedmont. Fiat was founded in 1899 by a group of investors including Giovanni Agnelli...
workers which ended with a 35-day occupation of the car manufacturer's factory. A committed and hardline trade unionist, Bertinotti affirmed the need for the working class to strike against the "injustices of the boss class", thereby attracting the anger of more moderate trade unionists. At that time he first disagreed with Sergio Cofferati
Sergio Cofferati
Sergio Cofferati is an Italian politician who, after serving as mayor of Bologna for the Democrats of the Left from 2004 to 2009, and thus has been elected as Member of the European Parliament in 2009 for the Italian Democratic Party....
, beginning a polemic which has continued, albeit in different forms, until the present.
In 1994, the year in which he was elected to the secretariat of the Rifondazione Comunista and to the Italian and European parliaments, Bertinotti resigned all his trade union positions. He remains interested in economics
Economics
Economics is the social science that analyzes the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services. The term economics comes from the Ancient Greek from + , hence "rules of the house"...
and workers' rights, and has been offered the position of Minister for Labour on several occasions by leaders of the Italian centre-left, but he has always declined it.
Politics
Bertinotti did not readily find a political party during the First Italian Republic which conformed to his principles. He was a member of the Italian Socialist PartyItalian Socialist Party
The Italian Socialist Party was a socialist and later social-democratic political party in Italy founded in Genoa in 1892.Once the dominant leftist party in Italy, it was eclipsed in status by the Italian Communist Party following World War II...
and then the Italian Socialist Party of Proletarian Unity
Italian Socialist Party of Proletarian Unity
The Italian Socialist Party of Proletarian Unity , was a political party in Italy from 1964 to 1972.-History:...
before joining the Italian Communist Party, in which he was a member of Pietro Ingrao
Pietro Ingrao
Pietro Ingrao is an Italian politician, and was for many years a senior figure in the Italian Communist Party .-Political career:Ingrao was born at Lenola, in the province of Latina....
's tendency.
Fausto Bertinotti was opposed to the dissolution of the PCI in 1991 and the creation by its reformist majority of the Democratic Party of the Left
Democratic Party of the Left
The Democratic Party of the Left was a post-communist, democratic socialist political party in Italy.-History:...
(PDS). Nevertheless, he did not immediately join the radical minority in the Partito della Rifondazione Comunista (PRC). He finally broke with PDS leader Achille Occhetto
Achille Occhetto
Achille Occhetto , nicknamed Akel, is an Italian political figure.-Biography:Occhetto was born in Turin. He served as the secretary-general of the Italian Communist Party between 1988 and 1994 Achille Occhetto (born 3 March 1936), nicknamed Akel, is an Italian political figure.-Biography:Occhetto...
in 1994 and became secretary of the PRC, replacing Sergio Garavini
Sergio Garavini
Sergio Garavini was an Italian politician, writer and trade unionist.-Biography:Garavini was born in Turin....
who had led the party since its foundation.
Bertinotti's accession to the leadership was organised by Armando Cossutta
Armando Cossutta
-Life:Born in Milan, Cosutta joined the Italian Communist Party in 1943, and took part in the Italian resistance movement as a partisan. After World War II, he became one of the leading members of the party, representing the most pro-Soviet Union tendency; his belief in that country as the...
, who probably wished to increase his own prestige and power within the party. In time, however, Bertinotti succeeded in winning over the majority of the party base, aided in this by his charismatic oratory.
He was confirmed in the position of party secretary at the third, fourth, fifth and sixth congresses of Rifondazione. At the last, however, his final document received less support than usual, gaining only 52% of delegates' votes. This close result has led many political commentators to suggest that he may be replaced as secretary of Rifondazione Comunista by Nichi Vendola
Nichi Vendola
Nicola "Nichi" Vendola is an Italian left-wing politician and currently the President of Apulia.-Life:Born in Terlizzi, province of Bari , Vendola had been a member of the Italian Communist Youth Federation since the age of 14; he studied literature in university, presenting a dissertation about...
.
As an ally of the "progressives" alliance in the 1994 general election, he agreed the "withdrawal" pact with the Ulivo coalition: Rifondazione would refrain from running candidates in certain electoral districts and advise its voters to support the candidates of the centre-left. The centre-left would reciprocate in other constituencies.
Thanks to this tactic, the Ulivo coalition won the elections and Prodi became prime minister. Bertinotti's relationship with the centre-left leader was not an easy one, and in 1998, when Prodi proposed a new budget, incorporating a vote of confidence in his government, Bertinotti and the Rifondazione voted against it, causing the fall of the government. Cossutta's faction refused to vote against the government and left the party. They subsequently established a new party, the Party of Italian Communists
Party of Italian Communists
The Party of Italian Communists is a communist political party in Italy. Its long-time leader is Oliviero Diliberto.-Foundation and early years:...
(Partito dei Comunisti Italiani, PdCI).
The PRC, weakened by this split, had a poor result in the 1999 European elections, but Bertinotti was nevertheless elected to the European Parliament
European Parliament
The European Parliament is the directly elected parliamentary institution of the European Union . Together with the Council of the European Union and the Commission, it exercises the legislative function of the EU and it has been described as one of the most powerful legislatures in the world...
.
Since 2001, Bertinotti has led the party to take more radical, mass-movement positions close to those of the growing alternative globalisation movement, a stance which is opposed by the party's Trotskyist factions.
From 2002 on, there has been some reconciliation between Rifondazione and the centre-left. The two tendencies have concluded alliances for both local and European elections in 2004 (in which latter the PRC gained 6.1% of the vote), as well as the regional elections of 2005, in which the centre-left coalition, rechristened L'Unione gained a clear victory.
Bertinotti declared himself willing to see Prodi chosen without primary elections as the left's joint candidate for the post of prime minister, but when Prodi accepted that primary elections would be necessary, he proposed himself as a candidate. The elections have been held on 16 October 2005 and apart from Bertinotti and Prodi, Antonio Di Pietro
Antonio Di Pietro
Antonio Di Pietro is an Italian politician. He was a Member of the European Parliament, an Italian Senator, and Minister of the Prodi Government...
, Alfonso Pecoraro Scanio
Alfonso Pecoraro Scanio
Alfonso Pecoraro Scanio , is an Italian politician. He served as Minister of Environment in the second cabinet of Romano Prodi between 2006 and 2008....
, Clemente Mastella
Clemente Mastella
Mario Clemente Mastella is an Italian politician. He is currently leader of Popular-UDEUR, a minor centrist Italian party. He was Minister of Labour in the Berlusconi government from 10 May 1994 to 17 January 1995, and Minister of Justice in the Prodi government from 17 May 2006 to 17 January 2008...
, Ivan Scalfarotto and Simona Panzino were the candidates. Prodi won with absolute majority, but Bertinotti ranked second with 16% of preferences.
Bertinotti was elected member of the European Parliament in 2004 on the Rifondazione Comunista list, in which he was candidate in all five electoral districts, receiving some 380,000 votes in all Italy. He served as member of the European Left group in the parliament, sitting on the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs
Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs
The Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs is a committee of the European Parliament.Since Economic and Monetary Union , the most important function of this Committee has been in relation to the European Central Bank . Although guaranteed independence under the Treaty, the ECB is accountable...
. He was a substitute for the Committee on Legal Affairs
Committee on Legal Affairs
The Committee on Legal Affairs is a committee of the European Parliament.It is preparing many crucial decisions of the European Parliament. It met on 20 and 21 June 2005 and debated and voted on the Directive on the patentability of computer-implemented inventions.-External links:*...
and a member of the Delegation to the EU-Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia Joint Parliamentary Committee.
After the general election
Italian general election, 2006
In the Italian general election, 2006 for the renewal of the two Chambers of the Parliament of Italy held on April 9 and April 10, 2006 the incumbent prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, leader of the center-right House of Freedoms, was narrowly defeated by Romano Prodi, leader of the center-left The...
held on April 9 and 10, 2006, which saw a narrow victory of The Union, Fausto Bertinotti was elected Speaker of the Chamber of Deputies, and thus left the party leadership, being replaced on May 7 by Franco Giordano
Franco Giordano
Francesco "Franco" Giordano is an Italian politician.Born in Bari, he became a member of the Italian Communist Party in 1974. In 1985-1987 he was member of the national leadership of Federation of Young Italian Communists, and, in 1987-1990, of the local PCI leadership of the province of Bari...
.
Miscellaneous
Bertinotti is an icon known to the Italian public for his “aristocraticAristocracy (class)
The aristocracy are people considered to be in the highest social class in a society which has or once had a political system of Aristocracy. Aristocrats possess hereditary titles granted by a monarch, which once granted them feudal or legal privileges, or deriving, as in Ancient Greece and India,...
” public image, mainly conveyed by his French R, his good manners and his elegant sweaters. His fascination with expensive cashmere
Cashmere wool
Cashmere wool, usually simply known as cashmere, is a fiber obtained from Cashmere and other types of goats. The word cashmere derives from an old spelling of Kashmir. Cashmere is fine in texture, and strong, light, and soft. Garments made from it provide excellent...
is also part of his idiosyncrasy. This bourgeois look has often been seen as being in ironic contrast with his far left
Far left
Far left, also known as the revolutionary left, radical left and extreme left are terms which refer to the highest degree of leftist positions among left-wing politics...
politics.
Bertinotti has recently been the subject of an internal controversy by former members of his party, notably Marco Ferrando
Marco Ferrando
Marco Ferrando is an Italian Trotskyist activist and politician, the leading member of the AMR Progetto Comunista current in the Movimento per un Partito Comunista dei Lavoratori , and a member of the Co-ordinating Committee for the Refoundation of the Fourth International.In February 2006, in the...
. Bertinotti's position on Italian military presence in Afghanistan has in fact reversed as he became President of the Chamber of Deputies. Formerly contrary, he pushed his party to vote positively to the re-founding of the mission itself, presumably to avoid putting his coalition into trouble.
Works
Bertinotti has written a number of political, ideological and trade-union related works:- La Camera dei lavori. Ediesse, Roma, 1987
- La democrazia autoritaria. Datanews, Roma, 1991
- Tutti i colori del rosso (edited by Lorenzo Scheggi Merlini). Sperling & Kupfer, Milano, 1995
- Il nostro nuovo Comunismo (ripartendo da Marx) (edited by CarloCarlo ValentiniCarlo Valentini is a San Marinese footballer who currently plays for S.S. Murata and the San Marino national football team-References:...
and Norberto Valentini). Carmenta, Milano, 1996 - Le due sinistre (with Alfonso Gianni). Sperling & Kupfer, Milano, 1997
- Pensare il '68 per capire il presente. Con una riflessione sul movimento no global (with Alfonso Gianni). Ponte alle Grazie, Milano, 1998
- Le idee che non muoiono (with Alfonso Gianni). Ponte alle Grazie, Milano, 2000
- Per una pace infinita (with Alfonso Gianni). Ponte alle Grazie, Milano, 2002
- Nonviolenza :it:Nonviolenza. Le ragioni del pacifismo, (with Lidia Menapace e Marco Revelli). Fazi, Milano, 2004
- Il ragazzo con la maglietta a strisce (with Wilma Labate). Aliberti, Milano, 2005