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ITALY: Rauti steps down

01 January 2002

On 10 February 2002 Pino Rauti stepped down as secretary of far right party Movimento Sociale - Fiamma Tricolore, and his chosen successor, Luca Romagnoli, was voted in as the new secretary at the party's Congress in Montesilvano (Pescara). The explicitly fascist party is an offshoot from the Movimento Sociale Italiano (MSI) that left the MSI when it became Alleanza Nazionale (AN) at the Fiuggi congress in 1994; it was one of a series of changes orchestrated by current deputy Prime Minister Gianfranco Fini, aimed at improving the AN's image by disavowing some of its most explicitly reactionary policies.
Reports from the congress stated that there was fighting over the way in which Rauti imposed his successor, a hail of Roman salutes during the national anthem at the close of the meeting, and messages of support from former president Francesco Cossiga and the Austrian far-right leader, Jorg Haider. In his acceptance speech, Romagnoli stressed the need for closer ties with the centre-right government coalition, so that "electors won't think that a vote for MS is wasted and advantageous for the left". He added, "like Mussolini, in 1924, won the elections by allying himself with the liberals and populars [mainstream parties] we, thanks to the electoral agreement with the Casa delle Liberta, must make our roots sprout". A controversial local electoral agreement in Sciliy between the MS and the centre-right coalition, headed by Berlusconi, allowed the MS to get its only elected representative in the Senate.
The outgoing speech from Pino Rauti, the founder of Ordine Nuovo, an organisation involved in a number of bombings during the so-called "years of lead", was typically racist: "We are a nation under threat, and with Italy, all of Europe is under threat. The physical, ethnic existence of our people is in doubt. In some years there will be 8 to 10 million less Italians: should we let in the same amount of immigrants?"

Repubblica 11.2.02; Il manifesto 10.4.01, 10.2.02; Philip Willan, "Puppet masters" Constable 1991 (ISBN 0-09-470590-9).