Italy’s Catholic and ex-communist parties merge

Italy’s former Communist Party has shifted further to the right, in an attempt to create a ‘broad church’ centre-left party similar to the US Democratic Party. The Italian CP was once the biggest CP in the West, with 1.8m members. In the early 1990s it ditched its (Stalinist) communism, renaming itself the Democratic Left Party. Now it is ditching the ‘left’ part altogether and merging with the Catholic Democracy and Freedom party (or ‘Margherita’), to be just the Democratic Party. The new party will be the biggest in Italy – in the last election ex-communist party gained 17.5% of the vote, and Margherita (led by Francesco Rutelli) won 10.7% - and will have a majority of ministers in the Romano Prodi Government. In fact, Prodi is the driving force behind the project, and is also advancing the merger of centre and left parties at the European level – essentially wanting the European left to take the form of the American democrats. However it’s interesting that even The Economist points out the de-radicalised nature of the new formation: ‘Mr Prodi wants the Democratic Party to be like its American namesake, but it will not be. Its leftmost tip may match the Democrats; but on the right it takes in members of Mr Rutelli's party who look more Republican.’ See also: Financial Times: Italian centre-left parties merge; and WSWS: Italy’s former Communist Party has shifted further to the right