South Tyrolean People's Party

South Tyrolean People's Party Südtiroler Volkspartei
Leader	Luis Durnwalder
President	Richard Theiner
Secretary-General	Philipp Achammer
Founded	8 May 1945
Headquarters	Via Brennero 7/A 39100 Bolzano
Newspaper	ZIS
Membership  (2003)	68,000[1]
Ideology	Regionalism, Christian democracy, Social democracy (minority)
International affiliation	none
European affiliation	European People's Party (observer)
European Parliament Group	European People's Party
Website
http://www.svpartei.org
Politics of Italy Political parties Elections

The South Tyrolean People's Party (Südtiroler Volkspartei, SVP) is a regionalist Christian democratic political party active in the Italian Province of Bolzano-Bozen.

Founded in 1945, the SVP represents the German-speaking population of the province, as well as the Ladin-speakers. Since the first election of the Provincial Council in 1948, the party has gained the absolute majority in every election. Its best result ever was 67.8% in 1948, its worst 48.1% in 2008.

The party has been in alliance with Christian Democracy (along with the Italian Socialist Party) until 1994 and later with some of its successor parties, including the Italian People's Party, both at the provincial and national level, and the Democratic Union of Alto Adige. In 1998 the SVP enlarged the provincial government to the social-democratic Democrats of the Left. Currently the party governs with the support of the centre-left Democratic Party, while loosening its ties with it at the national level.^[2]

Recent history

In the 2003 provincial election the SVP won 55.6% of the vote and 21 provincial deputies out of 35 and Luis Durnwalder was returned for the fourth time President of the Province (he has been in office since 1989), at the head of a coalition composed by the Democrats of the Left and a local alliance between Democracy is Freedom – The Daisy and the Union of Christian and Centre Democrats.

In the 2004 European Parliament election the SVP formed an electoral alliance with The Olive Tree. The party's share of votes fell for the first time down 50%, stopping at 46.7% (-9.3% from 1999, mainly because of the big win of the Greens (13.2%, +6.5%). However Michl Ebner was elected MEP with more than 90,000 preferences and also a Green, Sepp Kusstatscher (a former member of the internal left of the SVP), was elected. Prior to that other German-speaking Greens had been elected to the European Parliament, notably Alexander Langer and Reinhold Messner, but they had a much more national appeal. Since the party is an observer member of the European People's Party (EPP), Ebner sits in the EPP section of the EPP-ED Group.

In the 2006 general election the party was member of the winning The Union and got three senators and three deputies elected, along with one for its historical ally in the Province of Trento, the Trentino Tyrolean Autonomist Party.

2008 general election

In the 2008 general election the party had its worst result ever in general election, falling down to 44.3% (-9.1% from 2006 and -16.2% from 2001 and returning only two deputies, Siegfried Brugger and Karl Zeller. In the Senate election, thanks to the plurality voting system, the SVP re-elected its three senators, Helga Thaler Ausserhofer, Oskar Peterlini and Manfred Pinzger. This result was due both because of the strong showing of The Libertarians (9.4%) on the right and the decision not to enter in alliance for the Chamber of Deputies either with the centre-left led by the Democratic Party (18.0%) or the centre-right led by the People of Freedom (16.0%).

Soon after the election, the SVP renewed its alliance with Roberto Nicco, deputy from Aosta Valley, in the Chamber of Deputies, while it formed a group in the Senate with the three deputies of the Union of Christian and Centre Democrats, Senator Antonio Fosson of the Valdotanian Union, Mirella Giai of the Associative Movement Italians Abroad and three senators for life (Giulio Andreotti, Francesco Cossiga and Emilio Colombo).

2008 provincial election

In the 2008 provincial election the SVP managed to win the 48.1% of the vote in the Province (-7.5%), while its right-wing rivals (The Libertarians, South Tyrolean Freedom and Union for South Tyrol) gained a combined 21.5% of the vote. During the electoral campaign the party did not support as usual what are considered to be its counterparts in the Province of Trento, the Union for Trentino (successor of the Daisy Civic List) and the Trentino Tyrolean Autonomist Party, in order not to hurt the relations with Lega Nord, whose Trentino section, Lega Nord Trentino, provided the opposition candidate, Sergio Divina. Despite rumors about an alliance with Lega Nord Südtirol,^[3][4][5] after the election the SVP continued its alliance with the Democratic Party.

In April 2009 Richard Theiner was elected new party president, after an agreement between the major factions within the party.^[6] He will be assisted by two deputies, Thomas Widmann representing the party's left-wing and Martha Stocker on behalf of Durnwalder. In the run-up of the party congress that elected Theiner, the outgoing president Pichler Rolle stepped withdrew from the leadership race.^[7] In the 2009 European Parliament election, thanks to the absence of its rival parties on the right from the ballot because of the new electoral law, the party won 52.1% of the vote in the Province of Bolzano, electing Herbert Dorfmann to the European Parliament.

Ideology and factions

The ideology of the party, which is a typical example of catch-all party, ranges from Christian democracy, due to the deep Catholic tradition of the province, to elements of social democracy, due to the lack of a true social-democratic party, apart from the tiny Social Democratic Party of South Tyrol in the 1970s. However, between 1946 and 1994, the SVP entered in alliance only with the Christian Democracy and its smaller allies. In German-speaking valleys the SVP has almost no opposition, apart from the Union for South Tyrol and The Libertarians on the right and the Greens on the left.

In the years the SVP suffered many splits reflecting the diverse composition of the party (Tyrol Homeland Federation Party, Social Progressive Party of South Tyrol and Social Democratic Party of South Tyrol many SVP leading members left the party in order to join other parties, including notably Alfons Benedikter, a right-winger who launched Union for South Tyrol in 1989, Christian Waldner, a conservative-liberal who launched The Libertarians in 1992, Sepp Kusstatscher, a leftist who joined the Greens in 1999, and finally Roland Atz, a centrist who switched to Lega Nord Südtirol in 2008.^[2][8] The Party of Independents/Freedom Party of South Tyrol, the South Tyrolean Homeland Federation, the Union for South Tyrol and The Libertarians can all be considered in some ways splits of the SVP.

Within the party it is possible to identify several internal factions. The most important ones are the "Economy" (Wirtschaft) faction, which represents small business and the "Labour" (Arbeitnehmer) faction^[9], which reprsentes workers and is the political arm of the Union of South Tyrolean Independent Trade Unions (ASGB). The Wirtschaft faction includes also the "Agriculture" (Landwirtschaft) faction, which represents the interests of farmers and which has in Luis Durnwalder its leading representative.

The Wirtschaft faction, which is in fact the largest group and whose leader is Gerhard Brandstätter,^[10] includes Helga Thaler Ausserhofer, a true conservative^[11], Manfred Pinzger and Karl Zeller^[12], while the Arbeitnehmer faction, led by Reinhold Perkmann^[13] and since 2009 by Rosmarie Pamer^[14] has been represented for a long-time in the Italian Parliament by Oskar Peterlini, the most leftist member of the SVP in Parliament^[15], and Hans Georg Widmann and is represented in the provincial government by Sabine Kasslatter^[16] and Thomas Widmann.^[17] Also the leader of ASGB, Georg Pardeller, is a provincial deputy.^[18] Siegfried Brugger and Elmar Pichler Rolle, who led the party in recent years, are mostly centrist figures who work for preserving party unity, which is often put at risk by quarrels between Wirtschaft and Arbeitnehmer factions.

The factional divisions between party members reflected also on the vote of confidence on Berlusconi IV Cabinet: Pinzger and Thaler Ausserhofer abstained from the vote, while Brugger, Zeller and Peterlini voted against.^[19][20] This kind of divisions continued during the legislature, with senators, excluding Peterlini, supporting some of the government's policies and deputies often opposing the same measures. This provoked clashes between the right-wing and left-wing factions of the party, which may led to the break-up of the party. In order to prevent this outcome, Perkmann, leader of the Arbeitnhemer, proposed a "federal reform" of the party in order to preserve the catch-all nature of the party and simultaneously give more autonomy to its internal factions.^[13] The result was a mild reform of the party and the election at the leadership of the party in 2009 of a ticket composed by a member of the Wirtschaft faction, Richard Theiner, and a leading member of the Arbeitnehmer, Thomas Widmann, plus Martha Stocker.

Popular support

The electoral results of the SVP in the Province of Bolzano since 1992 are shown in the table below.

Leadership

• President: Erich Amonn (1945–1948), Josef Menz-Popp (1948–1951), Toni Ebner (1951–1952), Otto von Guggenberg (1952–1954), Karl Tinzl (1954–1956), Toni Ebner (1956–1957), Silvius Magnago (1957–1991), Roland Riz (1991–1992), Siegfried Brugger (1992–2004), Elmar Pichler Rolle (2004–2009), Richard Theiner (2009–...)
  • Honorary President: Silvius Magnago (1991–)
• Secretary: Josef Raffeiner (1945–1947), Otto von Guttenberg (1947–1952), Albuin Forer (1952–1953), Vinzenz Stötter (1953–1954), Ivo Perathoner (1954–1957), Hans Stanek (1957–1965), Josef Atz (1965–1978), Bruno Hosp (1978–1989), Hartmann Gallmetzer (1989–1997), Thomas Widmann, (1997–2004), Michael Mühlberger (2004), Alexander Mittermair (2004–2009), Philipp Achammer (2009–...)

References

Sources

• History of 60 years of the SVP, 1945–2005
• Provincial Council of Bolzano – Historical Archive
• Trentino Alto-Adige Region – Elections
• Provincial Government of Bolzano – Elections
• Cattaneo Institute – Archive of Election Data
• Parties and Elections in Europe – Province of Bolzano
• Ministry of the Interior – Historical Archive of Elections
• Günther Pallaver, Political parties in Alto Adige from 1945 to 2005
• Anton Holzer, Die Südtiroler Volkspartei, Kulturverlag, Thaur (Tyrol) 1991, ISBN 9783853951570
• Joachim Goller, Die Brixner Richtungen. Die Südtiroler Volkspartei, das katholische Lager und der Klerus, Studienverlag, Innsbruck/Wien/Bozen 2007, ISBN 9783706542307

External links

• Official website

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