The clear victory of the NO in the referendum is a slap in the face to the Meloni government. In light of a higher voter turnout, going against the trend of previous votes, it is a significant sign of political dissent expressed by a section of the country that is broader than the government’s base of support.
What has been rejected at the ballot box is a constitutional reform that the government itself chose to place at the center of its agenda, with the aim of securing consolidation ahead of the general election and adding a further piece to the mosaic of authoritarian tendencies promoted by the executive.
What has been rejected is not only this specific project, but a government that has made Italy complicit in acts of genocide and in imperialist wars.
The attempt to manipulate public opinion and the media beyond all decency has also been defeated. The referendum campaign relied on rallying the right-wing electorate, presenting the reform as a “solution” to the problems of justice in Italy, and equating opposition to the reform with the defence of criminals and rapists, as well as immigrants, who were automatically lumped together with those categories.
As communists, we harbour no undue illusions: our “no” was not a “no” in defence of the status quo, of judges, or of the judiciary. The Italian justice system remains unjust. The courts continue to perpetuate injustice, to serve the powerful, and to strike at the oppressed. The nature of institutions is inseparable from that of the system of power as a whole, and does not depend on the more or less positive attitude of individual judges.
Nor was it a “no” in defence of a Constitution that has long since been distorted and altered, even without granting us a referendum, as in the case of the introduction of the balanced-budget principle in 2012, in practice the imposition of a specific economic policy, approved by all parties.
It was a NO to a reform aimed at strengthening the government’s authoritarian control over institutions, weakening elements of counterbalance to the advantage of those forces, not only political but also economic, that would prefer to rule with an iron fist, without obstacles in their path.
The great challenge, starting now, will be to connect this “no”, expressed by a broad part of the Italian people, with the other major “no’s” that large sections of the popular masses are expressing today: against war, against rearmament plans, against sacrifices imposed in the name of the war economy, against the everyday injustice that millions of people experience firsthand.
We must prevent this “no” from strengthening the centre-left, and with it the old and new social-democratic illusions that can only lead into dead ends.
The broad participation in the vote, when read together with the major mobilisations of last autumn and recent months, shows that a demand for a political alternative does exist, but has not yet found an outlet. It is clearly expressed against the government in the referendum, but does not translate into electoral mobilisation in favour of an alternation within the framework of capitalist administration through the centre-left.
At the heart of our struggle lies the effort to build this alternative in Italy and to restore to the working class a communist party that is strong, credible, modern and organised. Without such a force, every victory, like today’s, will be short-lived and without perspective.
“There is no victory, no achievement, without a great communist party.”
Political Bureau — Communist Front of Italy
National Secretariat — Communist Youth Front
