This Sunday in Italy will be a general election, which was called after the current, unelected technocratic government headed by the banker Mario Monti lost the support of the People of Freedom, Berlusconi's party.
The Monti government has been in power since November of 2011 after Berlusconi's government resigned following a vote of no confidence. While Berlusoconi didn't technically lose that vote, the narrow margin there as well on the vote for the following state budget showed that his government no longer had solid ground to work on.
The Monti government since then had been operating on an austerity basis, attempting to bring its significant debt problems under control. These policies have not been popular and provided a means for Berlusconi to build up a political program again, despite being under investigation for sexual scandals and corruption. After formally announcing he would run for prime minister again, his People of Freedom withdrew support for the Monti government, forcing the election.
The election is being closely watched because it is important for Italy's future policies with its debt. The worst case scenario for markets is apparently a victory by Berlusconi and the People of Freedom, which has paradoxically campaigned against policies it instituted, taking a distinctly populist vibe. Berlusconi more recently even praised Benito Mussolini, which was roundly criticized but did not harm his opinion polling numbers.
What is more likely to happen is that the revolving door of politics will play out here, with the center-left Democratic Party earning a plurality of seats. What's concerning is that, much like the Greek elections, there might be so much of a split that no government can be formed. The "best" case scenario is that if Monti's centrist coalition gets enough seats, it would form a coalition with the Democratic Party.
Both houses of parliament have seats available. The lower house, the Chamber of Deputies, has 630 members elected on a proportional basis on party-lists. The Senate has 315 seats on a elected in a similar way- the senate also has an additional 4 lifetime seats that are awarded by the president to respected Italian figures, which includes two former prime ministers, a former president, and Mario Monti. There were five senators before, held by the Nobel Medicine prize laureate Rita Levi-Montalcini, but she died in December of 2012.
There appears to be a 4% threshold and a system that awards additional seats to the party that wins a plurality in a given region, presumably giving them a slim majority of the seats there, but I am not sure on its specifics.
So, we got the following parties and their coalitions. I have also listed the significant partners in them- there are several smaller groups also running on these tickets but they have negligible strength.
Spoiler:
-People of Freedom: Seen as the center-right party, it is essentially Berlusconi's political vehicle. With a brief interruption in 2006-2008, the party and its predecessors (Forza Italia and others) have had significant clout in the past decade. The People of Freedom was formed as a merger between Berlusconi's Forza Italia and the National Alliance in 2007, and has largely become the dominant center-right party since the dissolution of the Christian Democrats after the 1990s political scandals. The People of Freedom campaigned originally on a position of government reform and economic liberalization (which, of course, it did not achieve upon coming into power), but in this current cycle have taken a much more populist tone.
The People of Freedom is leading an electoral coalition which includes its current partner, the north-oriented Lega Nord. It also has a People of Freedom split, the nationalist Brothers of Italy, and "The Right", a diluted quasi-fascist outfit that split from the now defunct National Alliance, itself a moderated form of the NeoFascist Italian Social Movement. I do not know how a deeply nationalist praty like the Brothers of Italy could cooperate with Lega Nord, but I guess the circumstances of the election make for odd bedfellows.
Despite Berlusconi's outstanding criminal cases, he intends to stand as a candidate and will the block's choice for a PM if they get the opportunity to form a government.
-The Democratic Party: The most recent in a long line of center-left parties which emerged out of the downfall of the Communist Party and Socialist Party in the political scandals of the 90s. The party was briefly in power in a coalition government during 2006-2008 under Romano Prodi which was fraught with difficulties and disunity. The Democratic Party has moderated its position to a more typical social democratic one, a gradual shift it has done since the successor the defunct Communist Party, the Democratic Party of the Left. The party also has an element of the left-wing of the old Christian Democrats. The party will be lead by Pier Luigi Bersani, a 61 year old political veteran who had been a member of the various parties before, including the once-dominant Communist Party.
The Democratic Party leads a coalition called "Italy Common Good", which includes a social-democratic "Italian Socialist Party" (not related to the old, defunct one), the centrist "Democratic Centre", and the Left Ecology Freedom coalition. The list will be more heavily led by the Democratic Party than its People of Freedom competitor, in part because none of its partners have national seats, unlike the People of Freedom's Lega Nord and Brothers of Italy who hold seats in parliament. Its partners have regional or local seats, notably like Left Ecology Freedom's leader Nichi Vendola, who is the President of the Apulia region, an extraordinary feat considering Apulia is a conservative area and Vendola is openly gay.
-Mario Monti leads a self-styled centrist coalition called "With Monti for Italy". Mario Monti was originally a non-partisan pick to head the technocratic government, before then a banker who operated in various agencies. Monti was speculated to run in the election after the People of Freedom sunk his government. Monti will have to work hard to sell his political message, as his current austerity measures have been both unpopular among the populace and produced negligible results. Monti has tried to put on an image that his politicians are the only ones that will do what Italy needs to save itself, as opposed to political gain.
The coalition is led by Monti's newly founded Civic Choice, which gathered several politicians from different parties to add to its "centrist" credentials, but its political program is vague. It is joined by the Union of the Centre, a Christian Democratic party, and the conservative Future and Freedom, a split from the People of Freedom. Monti's party is not expected to lead a government but will likely be an important partner to any coalition (or at least Monti would present himself as such).
Other parties:
Spoiler:
-The Five Star Movement: A dark horse in the election, the Five Star Movement has been polling stronger than expected and is more than likely going to add to the expected split in parliament. The FSM does not really run on a platform beyond "anti-corruption", but it has taken some populist and environmentalist dimensions. The party is lead by a comedian, Beppe Grillo, who due to the party's position that none of its members can be convicted of a previous crime, is not running due to a 1980 manslaughter conviction but indicated he would have not run anyways.
The party tries to put on an anti-establishment appeal to those who have gotten sick of the Italian political system, with politicians often becoming self-serving rather than principles they were elected on as well as the criminal problems- to underscore this, Grillo pointed out that the Italian parliament would in effect have a higher crime rate than Scampia, a neighborhood of Naples which has the highest crime rate in the country. Today, Grillo held his last election rally which saw 800,000 people show up, another indication of the popularity of the FSM.
-Civil Revolution: A coalition of mostly left-wing parties which has been strongly against the austerity as well as political corruption in the country. The Civil Revolution's largest component is Italy of Values, a centrist party whose candidates have been supported by left-wing groups before in local elections, such as Luigi de Magistris, the mayor of Naples, and Leoluca Orlando, mayor of Rome- though both have since gone on to form their own party, the Orange Movement, which is also participating in this coalition. Both have catered an image of anti-corruption as well as aggressive investigation against the mafia. The coalition also has the support of the Communist Refoundation Party (from Communist Party members who did not join the moderate Party of Left Democrats in the 1990s), the Party of Italian Communists (a split of the previous), several Green groups under the banner of the Federation of Greens.
The leader of this block is Antonio Ingroia, a lawyer known for his prosecution of the mafia and a UN investigation into drug smugglers in Guatemala.
Stop the Decline: This party is new and has little appeal to the electorate it seems. It was founded on the initiative of some economists and is essentially based on free-market principles, putting out a platform of tax cuts and economic liberalization, taking aim at what they describe as a bloated Italian government. It includes Italian-American Michele Boldrin who was among several economists that opposed the stimulus and Luigi Zingales, author of two well-received economic books.
The group was led by an economist, Oscar Giannino, who was formerly a member of the Italian Republican Party, which imploded in the political scandals of the 90s. Giannino was apparently at the center of a scandal where he had added extra credentials to his resume, including a law degree and a master degree from the University of Chicago. This led him to resign as leader of the party, it is unclear who leads it right now.
There are other parties that are running on their own, but are unlikely to enter parliament. These include:
-Italian Radicals- vaguely libertarian
-I Love Italy: Conservative christian democrats
-Italian Reformists: Social Democrats
-Workers' Communist Party: Communists of the Trotskyist variety
-New Force: Fascists
-Tricolor Flame: Fascists
-CasaPound: Fascists
Who ever wins, if they are able to form a working government, will have a big mess to deal with. Unemployment, economic recession, debt, tax evasion, inefficient bureaucracy, and so much more, as well as potentially alienating their base if they take steps contrary to what they were campaigning on. IMO the worst case scenario would be a People of Freedom/Berlusconi win, but it is unlikely I feel because of the revolving door of politics- the Democrats will have their shot at governance. Will they repeat what they did in 2006-2008? We will see.
Rather concerning that anyone would still vote for Berlusconi. I don't really know how any German politician can look at the mess and think "oh great, let's make an union with those guys!".
Berlusconi's benefited I suppose from his media connections (his networks have considerable clout in the country), as well as vague populist promises. It seems in particular a household tax imposed by the Monti government is a lightning rod for him.
It's doubtful he'll get plurality but he might have enough clout to cause problems. I am also waiting to see what the turnout'll be like.
The second and last day of voting closed now. There is exit polling data but not official figures.
I must also add that from my own observation of the media, it has been interesting to see how Monti has essentially been getting more sympathetic coverage for being the more responsible and Italians just being spoiled and not wanting cuts. AFAIK Italy seems to have implemented austerity measures more resolutely than some of their neighbors but the continued economic contraction has obviously hurt Monti's credentials for that reason.
The current figures came in as expected. Most of the sources gives the Democrats and their allies first, the People of Freedom coalition at second, the Five Star Movement at third, and Monti's block at fourth. Even with Berlusconi's media advantage, it does not look good for Monti that he fell behind what as essentially a protest vote block. IMO this reflects the frustrations that Monti's austerity measures did not produce anything but problems for them.
It's in Italian but you should be able to recognize the party names. Most of them default to the Chamber of Deputies ("Camera"), but you'll see a tab for the Senate too (senato).
It seems for both the Senate and the Chamber, the results have been the same. For the most part it's:
1. Democratic Party (PD) coalition
2. People of Freedom (PdL) coalition
3. FSM
4. Monti
The other parties did not meet the 4% threshold in either house. Berlusconi's party performed stronger in the Senate than they did in the Chamber of Deputies.
Rather concerning that anyone would still vote for Berlusconi. I don't really know how any German politician can look at the mess and think "oh great, let's make an union with those guys!".
The other choices are an ex-communist turned eurofederalist and a comedian. Berlusconi is a playboy and quite shameless about pursuing his own media and administrative benefits, but his support comes from actual policies. He is for popular tax reductions, combatted the mafia and did some large projects of which's actual success is not quite clear. But we can't really know whether Italian projects fail because of politicians or the lax administrative culture and corruption, a bit like Greece, like Italy is known to be.
Berlusconi seems to be popular, but a bit of a "politically incorrect" type, which can be seen in that people don't like to say in pre-election polls that they're voting for him but do so on election day when it's anonymous.
Quote:
Berlusconi more recently even praised Benito Mussolini, which was roundly criticized but did not harm his opinion polling numbers.
A bit off topic, but I can't really understand how the media came up with such titles. "Berlusconi said Mussolini's antisemitic race laws were the most blameworthy initiative of someone "who, in many other ways, by contrast, did well." Italian fascism wasn't inherently racist, compare how the Nazis admired a 'Nordic race' that Italians weren't - though later with enhanced cooperation they did import Nazi anti-Jewish laws, but didn't Berlusconi just said that was blameworthy.
Of course Mussolini did some good things too. So did Stalin and Hitler. Even Eric Hobsbawm acknowledged the technocratic feats of Italian fascism, the famous saying how trains have been on schedule only during Mussolini. Besides anti-Jewish laws, Mussolini's shame is political repression, comparable to that of the DDR.
Historical comparisions might be useful when studying how stiff Italian bureuracy really is, though. Would profound change even be possible, regardless of which party has the majority.
Last edited by Rikupsoni; February 25th, 2013 at 03:55 PM.
What helped Belusconi's numbers is his media connections, mostly in MediaSet which he founded but is run by his son now. It really helped to try and put him out as a populist candidate, people willing to give him a pass on things his party OK'd when he was moved out of office when they supported the Monti government in the past few years. Looking at some studies this helped move his party up in opinion polling from the 13-14% range up to 25-26%, which is significant. I don't recall the exact clout but it is the largest private broadcaster and benefitted greatly from the market opening up in the 1990s and I think it's been said that he helped give it preferential treatment while in office when considering telecom and media bills.
I suppose it didn't help the opposition groups here didn't really have anyone with personality. Bersani seems to be too associated with the old political establishment and Monti is seen as responsible for taking EU orders without questions. Berlusconi can somehow play to the idea that he is a not a politician but rather a businessman, and a real Italian unlike Monti who is an EU stooge.
It seems to have payed off because according to results with over half the votes counted, the People of Freedom may have ended up securing a plurality in the Italian senate, and closely behind the Democrats in the Chamber of Deputies. That's probably the biggest surprise here since it was expected the PD would have a slim plurality in both houses.
At any rate the votes were essentialy split three ways among PD, PdL, and Five Star Movement with the remainder taken up by Monti, which means a government would be hard to form. As expected markets have reacted negatively to the upcoming impasse.
It seems to have payed off because according to results with over half the votes counted, the People of Freedom may have ended up securing a plurality in the Italian senate, and closely behind the Democrats in the Chamber of Deputies. That's probably the biggest surprise here since it was expected the PD would have a slim plurality in both houses.
At any rate the votes were essentialy split three ways among PD, PdL, and Five Star Movement with the remainder taken up by Monti, which means a government would be hard to form. As expected markets have reacted negatively to the upcoming impasse.
Scratch that about Berlusconi's PdL having the plurality in the Senate, the PD bloc came out ahead, but very narrowly. It's lead there is slimmer than what it has in the Chamber of Deputies. Some other sources are giving a slim lead to Berlusconi in the senate though.
-Democratic Party-led bloc: 29.54 %, 340 seats
-People of Freedom-led bloc: 29.13% 124 seats
-Five Star Movement: 25.55% 108 seats
-Italy for Monti: 10.54% 45 seats
-Civil Revolution: 2.2%
-Stop the Decline: 1.12%
-Other parties: 1.65%
Here the Democrat Party has significantly more seats because it won several from earning the plurality in the voting districts. As I said in the first post bonus seats are assigned to the party that gets the most in a region.
Senate - I must note that some people are giving PdL block a lead here and others the Democrats. The issue seems to be coming from the votes their partners got and who would be awarded those seats in more contested districts. For these I'm going from Repubblica
Democrat Party bloc: 31.6% 120 seats
People of Freedom bloc: 30.7% 117 seats
Five Star Movement: 23.8% 54 seats
Monti: 9.1% 18 seats
Civil Revolution: 1.8%
Stop the Decline: 0.9%
Other parties: 1.8%
Google's also got a map like they've done with other elections, it helps to show area where parties perform the strongest.
You can see the chunk of the Democratic Party votes in the industrial heart of Italy. PdL performed stronger in rural areas. You can also look at wikipedia's results page.
It's quite ridicilious that that tool (Berlusconi) got that many votes. That people were upset with the (neccessary) actions that Monti has taken is something I can understand. But apparantly many Italians were asking for taxcuts and Burlusconi offered those inclusing tax (on mortages I believe?) refunds. Thinking rationally you'd expect that people would realize that during a crisis there is no room for tax cuts or other such things to easy the burden. The economyis in a mess, there is no easy way out... I would almost wish that they would get their taxcuts only for the country to end up in even deeper problems, too bad it would drag oher (EU) countries with it. I wonder if they woudl consider taxcuts if there would be nobody (EU, ...) to help them with bail outs and other such solutions.
The big tax that Berlusconi focused on was the "Household Tax", which was apparently so unpopular that using it as a voting issue helped him to recover clout for the PdL. Understandably the Italians would be angry with austerity because they had essentially an unelected government led by Monti for nearly two years which hadn't really produced appreciable results with recovery.
I think the bigger issue here is how Five Star Movement got its votes and what it represents. FSM channeled both anger with austerity and disgust with Italian politics into one platform, kind of like how the pirate party has been a popular source of protest vote. No coherent program though and some of the positions are just there to cause the media to freak out (30 hour work week).
The best serving of video game culture, since 2001. Whether you're looking for news, reviews, walkthroughs, or the biggest collection of PC gaming files on the planet, Game Front has you covered. We also make no illusions about gaming: it's supposed to be fun. Browse gaming galleries, humor lists, and honest, short-form reporting. Game on!
2013 Italian parliament elections 
Linear Mode
