The Opposition Role of the Center-Left Party
in Italian Politics
In 2002, the opposition parties found themselves in a radically new
politico-strategic position as compared to the past. It was new in two
major ways. First, the previous year’s election outcome had represented
the further consolidation of a predominantly bi-polar dynamic
to party competition and had made it seem likely that the new government’s
stability would be greater than that of any other since
World War II. This presented a unique opportunity to the parties of
opposition, for typically in such circumstances, not only are governing
parties under pressure to carry through the policies on which they
have been elected, but the fortunes of each one of them individually
are closely bound to the success or failure of the government as a
whole. This means that they are vulnerable to opposition attack to a
degree that governing parties were not under the “First Republic,”
when at least the smaller parties were often able to avoid the electoral
consequences of unpopular measures, simply because of the
absence of any possibility of alternation.
