ABSTRACT: The text links the radical party's campaign for the adoption of the majority system with its latest "Italian" action to transform the party into a transnational structure: the majority proposal "expresses a choice of culture and political civilization: refusing the primacy of the parties over the institutions", and thus "projecting itself on the European scene". The "Anglo-Saxon" reform challenges "the form of the party [...] which has generally prevailed in continental Europe on the example of the German social-democracy". In Italy this system has produced the worst damages also owing to the "historical weakness of the Italian state" as well as the "collapse of 8 September 1943".

(1994 - IL QUOTIDIANO RADICALE, 26 October 1993)

At the heart of the debate on whether and how to end the party power regime is the outcome of the latest major "Italian" campaign organized by the Radical Party: the one for the adoption of a majority voting system, which Pannella (1) first launched, promoting a referendum on the subject. Perhaps it is the most conspicuous sign of the extent of the "Italian" strength of the radical party.

And yet, while aimed at finding a democratic solution with respect to the specific Italian situation represented by the corporative-partyist degeneration of the political system, this campaign had implications that went far beyond the national dimension. It is no coincidence that it was promoted in the same stage in which the radical party's transnational change was being made. Both arose from limits that suffocated the radical political action in Italy. The proposal to adopt the majority system expresses a choice of culture and of political civilization; refusing the primacy of the party over the institutions and the moment of representation, i.e. over the forms in which citizenship, citizen sovereignty and the guarantee of their equal rights are expressed and safeguarded. The primacy of the parties, which is the embryo and substance of party power; and which is structurally incompatible with the Anglo-Saxon model, which is instead deeply homogeneous with the proportional system which fuels it.

In this key of interpretation, the radicals' campaign against the proportional system - linked to the party's transnational prospect - assumes the relevance of a general indication and political proposal which, on the basis of what can be called the Italian "laboratory", projects itself on the European scene. Starting from the gravity of the Italian situation we need to acknowledge the harm caused by the party dynamics, albeit to a lesser extent, also in many other parts of Europe. We need to organize the political battle - as the radical party has been doing - on the dangers that the adoption of proportional models implies for the fragile democracies of post-communist Europe. But then, on the crucial level of the way of conceiving, doing and interpreting politics, the campaign for the "Anglo-Saxon model", i.e. for the form of the political relations which has generally prevailed in continental Europe starting from the example of the German social-democracy and then lead to the extreme consequences by the co

mmunist and fascist parties. I'm referring to the model of the party-state which implies militants' unconditional acceptance of the "laws" of the parties and of the decisions of its organs, and thus implies the primacy of party discipline on the other political obligations; a model which in the communist and fascist countries has reached the dimension of a party-army with military ethics and discipline, and has allowed the communist and fascist parties-states turn into States-parties. If proportional party power in Italy has reached a higher degree of degeneration as compared to elsewhere it is for many reasons, including the historical weakness of the Italian states, and its collapse on 8 September 1943 which had left the field open to the primacy of the parties-State which the Italians were already accustomed to by fascism - the campaign against it takes the meaning of a political project for liberal democracy in Europe.

Translator's notes

(1) 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.