The left may have fallen short in Italy, but we can learn from its campaign nonetheless, reports Shamik Das
It may seem perverse to talk about the lessons we can learn from Italy’s recent deadlocked election – the one in which the crook, the comedian and the centre-left candidate shared the spoils, while the technocrat incumbent got trounced. The result owes as much to an indecisive electoral system as the country’s dire economic straits, both of which we, thankfully, are free of. But, from the old-school mega-rallies and events (all but absent in recent UK election campaigns) to primaries and the online battle, there is plenty to contemplate.
First, the new. The Partito Democratico was the only party to organise primaries both for its leader and its parliamentary candidates, and was the only party without the leader’s name on the ballot paper. During the leadership primaries, both the eventual winner, Pier Luigi Bersani, and his principal challenger, Matteo Renzi, utilised the web, with the party gaining a strategic advantage. Between June and December 2012, it was the only political party with an online presence, dominating cyberspace – and it is a presence that continues to grow and deliver.
The PD’s primaries’ database stands at an impressive three million contacts (out of an electorate of about 50 million, with turnout at 75 per cent), a small army the party re-energised and mobilised in the general election. Detailed analysis of the database was undertaken, from people’s professions to backgrounds, knowing where to go, what to ask of them, and how many voters each can contact in turn. Many of these three million people (in a democracy of a similar scale to our own) are recently engaged and spreading the message ever further. Imagine such strength in the UK.
It was not just the leader who was picked in the primaries. The composition of regional party lists (of the kind UK voters use in European elections) was decided by these three million voters, each choosing one man and one woman, thus opening up the normally closed lists. Not only more women but more young candidates were selected, thanks to the primaries.
Now for the old. The PD’s new media, new primaries strategy was expertly allied to the best of traditional electioneering. While in Britain we have sterile, slick, controlled events – centring in 2010, and forevermore, on the TV leaders’ debates – in Italy, as in almost every other European state, there are unticketed rallies open to all, attracting tens of thousands of people, in towns and cities up and down the land. Though the speeches are as professional – as they should be – as those delivered in Britain, the atmosphere at these events is far from bland, the crowds being filled with more than mere party placemen.
In Britain, it has been a while since John Major stood on his soapbox connecting with the ordinary voter, and longer still since Michael Foot or Clement Attlee would electioneer the length and breadth of the country, Attlee driven round by his wife. Yes, it seems old fashioned, but such approaches had great appeal, as Italy reminds us.
The PD does not have all the answers, and indeed failed to win the election outright, but the template is there for the Labour party to follow.
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Shamik Das is former editor of Left Foot Forward. He worked with the Partito Democratico in Italy during the recent general election
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