ITALY • ISRAELI STATE
DP reneges on accord with LCR
THE CRISIS in
Democrazia Proletaria has had negative repercussions on the organization's relations with the Lega
Communista
Rivoluzionaria (LCR), the
Italian section of the
Fourth International, concerning the presentation of slates for the European elections.
HE CONVERGENCE of the LCR with DP was supposed to be achieved before June 18 (see /V
163). That was the LCR's proposal, and it was accepted by a majority of the DP
Delegate Assembly at the end of March.
However, subsequently, the DP Secretariat informed the LCR Secretariat that no meeting of the National Leadership was scheduled before the elections, and that the convergence would have to be postponed to a later date (immediately after the elections, if possible).
In these conditions, the two organizations began discussions about the inclusion of
LCR members in DP's slates. (It should be remembered that the LCR and DP have conducted joint election campaigns on several occasions already, whose results were considered quite satisfactory by both
LEGA
10
International Viewpoint #164 • May 29, 1989 sides). An initial accord was reached calling for the inclusion of LCR members in four out of five constituencies, with two, Livio Maitan and Antonio Moscato, heading slates.
Moreover, since Italian law makes it possible to include citizens of other EEC countries, the accord also involved running Alain Krivine, a leader of the French LCR, in Milan. Subsequently, DP asked the LCR to shift Alain Krivine to Rome. It agreed to this without objections. But at the last minute, when all the administrative procedures had been completed, DP informed the LCR that Krivine would not be a candidate, nor Livio Maitan either. (In the 1987 legislative elections, Maitan had been the head of a slate in Rome.) Moreover, Silvia Zappi, a member of Pierre Juquin's organization, the New Left, was included on slates in both Rome and Milan.
The LCR Secretariat issued a statement that criticized DP's decision in very sharp terms. It said, among other things:
"The exclusion of Alain Krivine's candidacy is a symptom of a choice to play down the presence of the LCR on the DP slates, and it reflects the method used to draw up these slates, a method that once again follows the road of conciliation with a 'Rainbow' project.
"This scheme represents a negation of the characterization of DP put forward on many occasions by the majority of the leading group as a party seeking a way in the framework of an anti-capitalist and class-struggle perspective.
'The decision to postpone our convergence, as well as the failure to respect the electoral accords, reflects a desire to belittle and minimize the importance that the unification between DP and the LCR could have in the eyes of people we are both talking to, who in the context of the crisis of the left are looking for answers and reference points as a positive signal of a coming together on the left of class-struggle forces."
Nonetheless, the LCR has confirmed its support for the DP slates. It will have two candidates in the Milan-Turin district (Rocco Papandrea, a worker at FIAT; and Edgardo Pellegrini, a journalist), and one in the eastern district (Emanuele Battain, a lawyer), as well as two in the south (Antonio Moscato, who heads a slate; and Angela Mignogna, a teacher). *
MIOCRAN