In 1998, in his film "Aprile", Nanni Moretti perfectly illustrated the disappointments aroused by the Italian left.
He then embodied a director concerned about the political situation in his country.
One of the scenes showed him screaming in front of his television during a televised debate between Silvio Berlusconi and former left-wing leader Massimo D'Alema, unable to respond to the media mogul's attacks: "React! Say something React! Say something left! Not even left, but at least something civic!"
Six elections and a dozen governments later, Silvio Berlusconi is still in the Italian political landscape, now playing the back-up partners of a coalition dominated by the extreme right.
This is given arch-favorite to win the legislative elections, Sunday, September 25, while left voters are depressed, still waiting to hear "something from the left".
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During the Festa dell'Unità in Bologna, a festival organized by Italy's center-left Democratic Party (PD) in late summer that combined politics, culture, food and other festivities, the crowd did not hide their dismay unless two weeks from the vote.
"We are resigned. We are going to lose, there is no hope", explains Gianluca Marozzi, a writer seated at the Bella Ciao restaurant with his friends, Silvia and Caterina.
The trio point to the left's inability to address the people and regret a "drift [of the country] towards extremist opinions", citing the success of the far-right candidate and favorite to become the future Prime Minister, Giorgia Meloni.
The Bella Ciao, held by the National Association of Italian Partisans (ANPI).
© Benjamin Dodman, FRANCE 24
"The right plays on people's fears, they know how to take them in the gut, while we on the left have failed to get our message across", judges Silvia, while the famous song of anti-fascist resistance fighters "Bella Ciao" echoes in the room.
“The whole political landscape has drifted to the right”
Italy's "red" bastion, Bologna should resist the wave of the right to come.
"Bologna is still resisting, but the party has chosen a bad candidate for the city, many people find it difficult to support him", observes Gianluca Marozzi.
A senator since 2013, Pier Ferdinando Casini is currently the longest-serving Italian parliamentarian – he was first elected in 1983. A defector from the Christian Democrats, he became a candidate for the PD, to everyone's surprise, after passing most of his political career in the centre-right, regularly forming an alliance with Silvio Berlusconi.
Enough to fuel the critics who attribute his change of label to opportunism.
The decision to choose Casini for the seat of senator of Bologna is particularly criticized among students in the city, which is home to the oldest university in the world.
In the Dubcek garden, at the heart of the Faculty of Political Science, Ardalan Baghaesi, a Master's student, judges this candidacy symptomatic of the PD's drift to the right.
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"The conservatives are doing everything to be more and more to the right, while the left is trying to become more moderate. Suddenly, the whole political landscape has drifted to the right," he notes.
Many students on the left say they will not vote on September 25 – some in protest at the choice of candidates like Casini, others because of the cost of traveling to their home region, to a country where neither postal voting and electronic voting do not exist.
Bologna, known for its sienna-colored walls, is traditionally a bastion of the left.
© Benjamin Dodman, FRANCE 24
Asia, a third-year law student, intends to abstain because she believes that essential subjects such as the environment, women's rights, immigration and inequalities, in an Italy divided between a rich North and a poor South , are not sufficiently treated.
"The left is afraid to talk about immigration when it should be taking it over and solving the problems," she says.
For Ardalan Baghaesi, it is the question of global warming, in particular after a summer marked by drought and forest fires, which should dominate the debates.
"We are living in a historic moment and the PD is failing to come up to the level to propose a model of society that would allow us to move towards a greener economy, he explains. This is costing them many votes among young people ".
Enrico Letta, an uncharismatic leader
Beyond the difficulties with young people, the leader of the Democratic Party and former Prime Minister Enrico Letta is going through a complicated electoral campaign.
After having done everything to prevent the fall of the government of current Prime Minister Mario Draghi, Enrico Letta had the greatest difficulty in setting up a coalition to face that of Giorgia Meloni.
He initially refused to ally himself with the populists of the 5 Star Movement.
Then his project of alliance with the centrists fell through when the latter refused to campaign alongside the Greens and far-left parties allied to the PD.
To top it off, Enrico Letta never managed to put forward his program.
According to the polls, the alliance formed around the PD is given 15 points behind the right-wing bloc led by Giorgia Meloni, Silvio Berlusconi and Matteo Salvini, which could, thanks to the Italian electoral system, obtain a parliamentary majority comfortable enough to be able to modify the Constitution.
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"The PD is clearly a government party which has remained loyal to Mario Draghi, but which has failed to find its place during this campaign", explains Maurizio Cotta, professor of political science at the University of Siena.
"He doesn't have much to say other than to warn voters of the Meloni danger," he adds.
"The PD is mistaken in trying to play the counter-attack against a Meloni on the offensive", believes for his part Gianfranco Pasquino, professor at the antenna of Johns Hopkins University located in Bologna.
"To play this game, you need good attackers, you need a Mbappé. Except that the left has no Mbappé in its workforce," he quips.
In fact, Enrico Letta appears to be a perfectly decent centre-left politician, but devoid of charisma.
"Letta is intelligent, capable and reliable, believes Gianfranco Pasquino, who has devoted several books to the Italian left, but he does not know how to go into battle and is not particularly original."
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A character far removed, for example, from Jean-Luc Mélenchon in France, whose movement L'Union populaire inspired a new formation on the Italian political scene.
The former mayor of Naples, Luigi de Magistris, set up a radical left alliance in July, going so far as to adopt the same name: Unione Popolare.
The former candidate for the French presidential election traveled to Rome at the beginning of September to support this union.
But it will be difficult to break through for the Unione Popolare.
"The social, cultural and economic DNA of Italy leans towards conservatism. Unlike France, the place of the Church is still preponderant there. There cannot be a radical break and de Mélenchon in Italy, believes Gianfranco Pasquino. The PD is fully aware of this and knows that it must address moderate voters."
The Democratic Party considered too cautious
Problem: its desire to appear as a government party and its caution in the various government coalitions in which it took part prevented the Democratic Party from being a transformative political force.
Particularly in terms of LGBT rights or the naturalization of children of migrants, according to the specialist of the Italian left.
"They could have proposed laws to the vote of Parliament, but they were afraid of failure. However, this would have given them an electoral argument of the type: 'if you want a law against homophobia, vote for us'", Gianfranco Pasquino analysis.
This timidity of the Democratic Party was one of the recurring themes at the Festa dell'Unità in Bologna.
"Look in Spain, there is a minority socialist government that has made the fight against violence against women a priority. Why can't we do the same?" asks Silvia at the Bella Ciao restaurant.
Italian Communist Party posters from the last century at the Festa dell'Unità in Bologna.
© Benjamin Dodman, FRANCE 24
"It is true that the PD has been rather weak on civil rights. They are afraid of losing the vote of the moderates by being too bold", adds Vittorio Gaetano, an LGBT activist also met at the Unity Day.
The latter fears that a government dominated by the far right will give free rein to insults and homophobic attacks, but does not believe in a drastic backtracking on civil rights.
"They can't reverse the course of history," he reassures himself.
An opinion not necessarily shared by Gianfranco Pasquino, who notably cites anti-abortion measures taken by right-wing regional governments.
"Hence the need for the left to be more courageous when it is in power," he adds.
Article translated from English by Romain Brunet. The original version can be found here.
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