Over the past few years, Italian politics has been polarised between extreme right-wing populists and technocrats. The first group ranges from the pretend-outsiders of M5S to the fascists of Fratelli d’Italia. The other is formed by professional politicians, bankers and managers who are supposed to be impartial implementers of political reforms, often parachuting into office unelected.

With each election, technocrats promote more and more unequal reforms and restrictions to labour rights in order to supposedly stabilise the economy, but in reality only serve the big interests that got them the job in the first place. Meanwhile, right-wing parties become ever more racist, sexist and conspiracy-friendly, threatening even the most fundamental achievements of social movements.

We got to this point thanks to Italian oligarchs and political elites, who are becoming increasingly desperate to cling onto power as people get more and more fed up. It’s thanks to them that we continue to postpone the actions needed to address the climate crisis, increasing inequalities and the pandemic. People in Italy are facing huge economic hardship, heat waves, drought, restrictions to their rights, and they cannot wait anymore. We need to help build the comet that will make Italian oligarchs and political dinosaurs extinct.

We are going to face the most rapid and brutal election campaign of recent years. We expect little, but already feel let down as the ‘new’ parliament will practically be composed of the same old faces. We must put all of our effort into building a bottom-up alternative, starting from social movements and all people that resist the emptiness of the current public debate. We will build a realistic and radical political alternative – Italy and Europe need it.

This will be the last election in which Italian voters are left without a meaningful alternative.

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