ABSTRACT: Pannella (3) is one of the very few politicians who has always paid a personal price for his ideas, refusing any compromises or important positions. As for Bossi (4), he should first of all prove he will not trade in his "troops" in exchange for positions and privileges...

(PAESE SERA, April 3rd, 1992)

Is Pannella an electoral symbol or something else? Emma Bonino has no doubts: it is a way of personalizing the vote on the model of the Anglo-Saxon majority system. The radical exponent disagrees with everyone and attacks Segni and Giannini.

Q: Mrs Bonino, you are running in Pannella's list. Would you say Pannella is a symbol or a political leader?

A: Pannella is one of the very few politicians who has always paid a personal price for his ideas, and has always refused compromises or important positions. People know that, because at some stage of their life, everyone has supported his (and our) battles. Everyone has "needed" the radicals at least once. Hence the decision of inventing a list which clearly indicates not only a platform, but also the leader who is called to apply it. It is the first experiment of the kind in Italy. The model we refer to is the Anglo-Saxon countries, where lip-service is not enough, and where candidates also need to be credible and have a clean political and personal record".

Q: But can the Anglo-Saxon system be applied in Italy?

A. "I think it would work perfectly, provided it is applied the way we are suggesting: a candidate vs. candidate contest, as in America, with two or three parties at the most. The party with the most votes comes into power, and the others perform functions of control. A clean sweep, that would rid this country of the consociate party power we are stuck into, and thanks to which voters would finally choose who they want in power".

Q: A controversy has arisen between Pannella, Segni and Giannini on the referendums...

A: "If, instead of the "American" hypothesis I illustrated above, we were to have a double ballot system, as in France, the evils we aim to eliminate would remain, and possibly even get worse. This is what Segni and his group seems to be advocating. As to Giannini's list, all I can say is that the radical party has done all it could to support them. But then I heard one of their candidates on TV, who said they have nothing to do with the radicals..."

Q: The expression "party power" is another one of Pannella's inventions. Now it is on everyone's lips, including Bossi's...

A: "It is a very common practice, considering that the press allows La Malfa (5), for instance, to present himself as the champion of anti-party power after having shared in the spoils system with the DC. Perhaps even Forlani (6) might try using it...As to Bossi, first of all he needs to prove he won't trade in his "troops" in exchange for positions and privileges..."

Translator's notes

(1) BONINO EMMA. (Bra 1948). President of the Radical Party, former member of the European Parliament, as of 1976 member of the Italian Parliament. Among the promoters of the CISA (Information Centre on Sterilization and Abortion) and active militant in the campaign against clandestine abortion. She was tried and acquitted in Florence. Participated in the conduction, on a national and international scale, of the campaign on World Hunger. Among the founding members of "Food and Disarmament International", promoted the circulation of the Manifesto of Nobel Laureates.

(2) SEGNI MARIO.

(3) PANNELLA MARCO. Pannella Giacinto, known as Marco. (Teramo 1930). Currently President of the Radical Party's Federal Council, which he is one of the founders of. At twenty national university representative of the Liberal Party, at twenty-two President of the UGI, the union of lay university students, at twenty-three President of the UNURI, national union of Italian university students. At twenty-four he advocates, in the context of the students' movement and of the Liberal party, the foundation of the new radical party, which arises in 1954 following the confluence of prestigious intellectuals and minor democratic political groups. He is active in the party, except for a period (1960-1963) in which he is correspondent for "Il Giorno" in Paris, where he established contacts with the Algerian resistance. Back in Italy, he commits himself to the reconstruction of the radical Party, dissolved by its leadership following the advent of the centre-left. Under his indisputable leadership, the party succeeds in

promoting (and winning) relevant civil rights battles, working for the introduction of divorce, conscientious objection, important reforms of family law, etc, in Italy. He struggles for the abrogation of the Concordat between Church and State. Arrested in Sofia in 1968 as he is demonstrating in defence of Czechoslovakia, which has been invaded by Stalin. He opens the party to the newly-born homosexual organizations (FUORI), promotes the formation of the first environmentalist groups. The new radical party organizes difficult campaigns, proposing several referendums (about twenty throughout the years) for the moralization of the country and of politics, against public funds to the parties, against nuclear plants, etc., but in particular for a deep renewal of the administration of justice. Because of these battles, all carried out with strictly nonviolent methods according to the Gandhian model - but Pannella's Gandhi is neither a mystic nor an ideologue; rather, an intransigent and yet flexible politician - h

e has been through trials which he has for the most part won. As of 1976, year in which he first runs for Parliament, he is always elected at the Chamber of Deputies, twice at the Senate, twice at the European Parliament. Several times candidates and local councillor in Rome, Naples, Trieste, Catania, where he carried out exemplary and demonstrative campaigns and initiatives. Whenever necessary, he has resorted to the weapon of the hunger strike, not only in Italy but also in Europe, in particular during the major campaign against world hunger, for which he mobilized one hundred Nobel laureates and preeminent personalities in the fields of science and culture in order to obtain a radical change in the management of the funds allotted to developing countries. On 30 September 1981 he obtains at the European parliament the passage of a resolution in this sense, and after it several other similar laws in the Italian and Belgian Parliament. In January 1987 he runs for President of the European Parliament, obtaini

ng 61 votes. Currently, as the radical party has pledged to no longer compete with its own lists in national elections, he is striving for the creation of a "transnational" cross-party, in view of a federal development of the United States of Europe and with the objective of promoting civil rights throughout the world.

(4) BOSSI UMBERTO. Leader of the Northern League.

(5) LA MALFA GIORGIO. Secretary of the Italian Republican Party.

(6) FORLANI ARNALDO. (Pesaro 1925). Secretary of the Christian Democratic Party. Former minister and Prime Minister (1980-81). Considered to be a conservative centrist.