The National Alliance (Alleanza Nazionale, AN) was created in 1994 by Gianfranco Fini, the former Youth Front leader of the Movimento Sociale Italiano (MSI) which was formed in 1946 by supporters of the executed dictator 'Il Duce' Benito Mussolini, Italy's former fascist leader.

The AN was formed by Gianfranco Fini from most of MSI (he declared MSI dissolved in January 1995) and conservative elements of the former Democrazia Cristiana which disbanded in 1994 after two years of scandals and secessions due to corruption at its hightest levels.

Its electorate is mainly in the central-southern regions, but it also competes in the north with the Lega Nord, its ally in the ruling right center coalition Casa delle Libertà, with which it both shares and opposes some views, although expressed in more moderate tones, (e.g. is less strident on the immigration issue) and AN's stress on national unity contrasts with the League’s regionalism.

Political program

AN’s political program emphasizes:

• Catholicism, close to the official Church position (due to the participation of the former members of Democrazia Crisitana)
• law and order, especially laws aimed at controlling immigration and promoting national cohesion (due to the partitipation of the members of the former MSI)

Distinguishing itself from the MSI, the AN characterises itself as "post-Fascist" and proclaims its commitment to constitutionalism, democracy and political pluralism .

Alleanza Nazionale has distanced itself from Benito Mussolini and fascism and made efforts to improve relations with Jewish groups. With most hardliners leaving the party, it seeks to present itself as a respectable rightwing party.

Nearly two-thirds of the party's supporters approve of the capitalist system and hold favourable views on the privatisation of state industries.

History

In January 1995, as officially Gianfranco Fini proclaimed MSI's dissolution, and the foundation of the AN, he announced the abandonment MSI's ideological stances, symbols, gestures and salutes that had closely identified it with the Mussolinian past.

Despite Fini’s success in distancing the party's image from the former MSI, including the suppression of anti-Jewish comments in public and the party organ "Il Secolo d’Italia", there remain contradictions within the party, mainly in regard to its fascist past.

A rare anti-Semitic manifestation was a March 1999 leaflet produced by the AN’s Julius Evola Club in Sestu (Cagliari). The leaflet quoted alleged Talmudic passages as proof that Jews compared Gentiles to beasts. In response to protests, the local AN president claimed that the references were intended to be “neither racist, nor anti-democratic nor anti-Jewish.”

The AN club in Fiumicino (close to Rome), called for a square to be named after fascist leader Ettore Muti , while the president of the region of Lazio, Francesco Storace , asked that each city dedicate a street to Giorgio Almirante , the predeccessor of Fini as the leader of the now-defunct MSI.

When Gianfranco Fini visited Israel in late November 2003 in the function of Italian deputy prime minister, Fini labeled the racial laws issued by the fascist regime in 1938 as “infamous.” He also referred to the RSI as belonging to the most shameful pages of the past and considered fascism part of an era of “absolute evil.”

As a result, Alessandra Mussolini, the granddaughter of the former Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini, and some hardliners left the party.

Government participation

The party has taken part in the first two House of Freedoms coalition governments (1994 and 2001-) of prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, in the second of which Fini is deputy prime minister and, from November 2004, foreign minister.

In 1998, it had a membership of 485,657 in 11,539 branches in 1998, 89 deputies and 41 senators in the Italian parliament and nine Euro-Parliament members.

The AN suffered a 5 percent loss in the 1999 elections to the European Parliament, obtaining only 10.3 percent of the vote. It recovered somewhat in the April regional elections, gaining 12.8 percent nationwide (well over 20 percent in Rome and Lazio).

In the May 2001 national elections AN obtained 96 seats out of 630 in the Chamber of Deputies and 46 seats out of 324 in the Senate. The party lost a few key seats in the 2003 local elections such as the Province of Rome, but its position remained firm. The party obtained 11.5 percent of the vote and 9 seats in the June 2004 European Parliament elections.

In the European Parliament, its MEPs work within the group of the Union for a Europe of Nations.

External link

• Alleanza Nazionale web site
• Azione Giovani web site
• Azione Giovani Isola d'Ischia web site
• Continuity or change in the ideology of the Alleanza Nazionale
• The annual report of Anti-semetism worldwide, 1997, 1999, 2003 and between.