The following is a speech given at the “State of Italy Today” conference, an event organized by PIB (Professionisti Italiani a Boston) and the Dante Alighieri Society on April 29, 2018.
On June 2, 1946, Italy became a Republic by a referendum. So she is about to turn 72, exactly a month from today.
I say “she” not only because in my language it makes sense grammatically – “L’Italia” is female – but also because it makes sense sentimentally: Italy is my MAMMA, and I could not refer to her as “IT” if I tried.
Now her birthday is coming up, and do you know what she would really like for her birthday?
A Government!!
Actually not only would she like it … She needs it! Badly!!
However at this point even though it’s still a month away I’m starting to doubt she will get one on time.
In fact she has been waiting for it for almost two months, since Italians on March 4th elected the new parliament.
They had not done that for almost five years – which is the exactly the time a parliament should last, according to our constitution. That’s Good!! Right?
Now, it would be good if wasn’t for the fact that in the meantime the country went through 5 different executive governments – or administrations, to say it in the American Way – headed by 5 different Prime Ministers: Silvio Berlusconi, Mario Monti, Enrico Letta, Matteo Renzi and the current one led by Paolo Gentiloni, still in charge of
current, theoretically non-political, business during the transition. (Of course this included the decision on the bombing of Syria .. so much for NON POLITICAL … but this is material for another talk),
Let’s go back to Rome, where all is happening (or should I say NOT happening!!)
More specifically, in that “Bermuda Triangle” between the Quirinale (where the President of the Republic lives and works), Palazzo Madama (seat of the Senate) and Montecitorio (seat of the House of Representatives), the adjacent Palazzo Chigi, where the Prime Minister and his cabinet work, still remains vacant to this day, after several attempts to find a tenant were sucked in and eventually disappeared in the murky waters of Roman politics.
… By the way, all these places I mentioned are within walking distance of each other, … yet that doesn’t make (political) navigation any easier!! Right ambassador?
Especially in a situation like the one the vote of March Fourth created in both Chambers.
Don’t get me wrong, it was no surprise, and you didn’t have to be a journalist, a political science major and/or a news buff (I am all three) to forecast the stall that followed.
Also the protagonists kind of knew what was coming! However since misperception and wishful thinking usually go hand in hand, they all, ALL, hoped they would get enough votes not to worry about it.
Oh well guess what? … No one did!!
Of course the electoral system didn’t help.
In the beginning, and up until 1994, Italy would choose its parliament with a proportional system, which (in a country where four people around a table create five opinions because someone usually changes his mind during the meeting) instigated the creation of a myriad of parties – something Italy was famous for – which ran SEPARATELY only to form coalitions ONCE ELECTED (usually around the Cristian Democrats (DC) on the right, or the Communist Party (PC) on the left in order to reach the magic number of seats to form and sustain a government.
Then in 1992-93 came “Tangentopoli (Bribeland),” also known as “Mani Pulite (CleanHands),”
Don’t you love my free-range translations?
a nationwide investigation which, by uncovering a series of scandals and corruption practices at all levels, had an inevitable domino effect on the entire political landscape.
It was the final blow to a traditional party system already crumbling due to the end of the cold war: everything changed, and so did the electoral system.
We went from a proportional system to a “Winner takes all” one, where parties had to form coalitions OUTSIDE the parliament and BEFORE the vote in order to be elected. Just like here, or in England, where third parties, no matter how popular, struggle to stay alive … and they usually don’t,
so eventually they converge back to the main cauldrons.
Given the nature of its people, and its history, both systems created coalitions made up of strange bedfellows: whether before or after the elections. Some worked, some didn’t.
Particularly unconvincing – and just plain odd – was the “marriage of convenience” between “Forza Italia” the party founded from scratch by Silvio Berlusconi to fill the void left by the implosion of the Christian Democrats, and the Northern League, currently headed by Matteo Salvini the grass roots movement which managed to successfully channel the frustrations of mostly business owners of the North against taxes, the South, and immigrants.
Even though from an ideological point of view the alliance never really “clicked” – and at times created serious problems – it brought enough votes from the North to the table to make the Center-right victorious more often than not, and contributed to make Berlusconi the most influential political figure of the following 20 years.
Then times changed again: in 2009 the economy took a turn for the worse – like everywhere else, for that matter – and more people struggling to get to the end of the month began blaming the European Union, and Globalization in general “for taking away jobs and in return flooding the country with immigrants.” – again, like in many other countries, including this one!
At the same time Berlusconi’s various legal problems culminated in an actual conviction and, however reluctantly, he had to step temporarily out of the spotlight. Also the Democratic Party (PD) – at that point a distant descendant of the Old Communists – and The Northern League had their share of corruption scandals as well. In other words, the country was ripe and ready for something new.
At that point, apparently out of nowhere, came Movimento 5 Stelle, (The Five Star Movement), an internet based grass root party headed by Beppe Grillo, a comedian turned blogger, and GianRoberto Casaleggio a digital marketing guru turned ideologue.
Strong with an army of complete unknowns, who boasted of their lack of political experience as proof of their moral cleanliness, and of their declared will to drain both the Roman – and the national – swamp (Rings a Bell??), over the course of 5 years, M5S (don’t call them “grillini” they resent it!) quickly turned from a phenomenon to be reckoned with to Italy’s main political force and, after March 4th, by far the strongest party in Parliament. That’s how ready Italy was for something new.
In a way Matteo Renzi – PD leader and prime minister for almost two years, (2015 – 2016) tried hard to fulfill this desire. Young, yes, the first prime minister in history too young to run for the Senate, but .. mmhh, not that new, or at least not new enough!
By calling himself “Rottamatore” (the disposer) and promising to get rid of the junk (I rottami) from old politics, he managed to alienate some of his party’s old guard and their voters. The few reforms he passed – labor market, retirement system, bank bailouts – alienated the labor unions and the left of the party (young and old). Finally, in late 2016, he turned the referendum on constitutional reform (which included the abolition of the Senate and the provinces) into a personality contest.
How did it go? .. Oh, well, the Senate and the provinces are still there, while he resigned as prime minister after that vote, and as party leader after the March 4th vote. In other words, in less than two years, Italy “disposed of the disposer,” … ha ROTTAMATO IL ROTTAMATORE (even though from the junkyard his voice can still be heard, loud and clear). … But I’ll get to that in a minute.
Now let’s look at what happened two months ago.
This happened:
A parliament with three opposing blocks, (PD on the left, 5 Stelle in the middle, and a coalition Forza Italia-Lega – which dropped the word North from its name) on the right.
None of them has enough seats. And for different reasons, none of them has much of a chance to get the help of one of the other two, in order to produce a stable and lasting majority.
In other words, a stalled parliament.
In a parliamentary democracy like ours, where we can only vote for the parliament, parliament decides everything: even the President of the Republic – who chooses the person with the best chance to form a government based on the party majorities … in the parliament. Therefore, a stalled parliament is a stalled country.
And that’s the last thing Italy needs.
Especially now!
This was the product of a byzantine electoral system – complicated both in the voting and in the vote count – born out of a one-and-a-half–year-long negotiation among all the political forces. It was a worst-of-both worlds combination between the two previously adopted ones. One-third of the seats were elected with a “winner takes all” system, and the remaining two-thirds with a proportional one.
So, as in the good old days, anyone could form a party. (And they did, dozens of them, just to confuse the voters even more). This time, though, Italians were wiser than their politicians and did not vote for most of them and did not waste their vote in so doing. However, the way votes were counted allowed the leaders of these tiny parties to get elected anyway, thanks to the fact they were also part of a coalition.
… Don’t ask!! It was confusing even for a political buff with a political science major and a master in journalism. All I know is that without this mixed system many famous and seasoned politicians would have remained at home.
The important fact to understand about the mixed system is that coalitions had to be formed BOTH before the vote to get elected AND after the vote to form a government.
And that is exactly what is NOT happening. And for reasons that involve both specific electoral programs and general political philosophy. Each leader is afraid that an alliance would be seen as a betrayal by his own voters.
And that next time they will be held accountable for it.
The 5 Stars headed by 31 years old Luigi Di Maio ran on a promise of universal unemployment benefits. The Center Right, instead, ran on an across-the-board flat rate tax cut: Guess what, there is not enough money for either … let alone both!!
Also the 5 Stelle declared war on traditional parties, falling just short of accusing them of being basically criminal organizations.
This was one of the keys to their success, obtained mostly at the expense of the left, where many, disappointed by Renzi’s shift to the center and uncertain about the newborn parties to his left, preferred to flock to 5 Stelle in great numbers.
So even though some in the PD, like current temporary leader Maurizio Martina, might consider the idea of a collaboration, (“for the good of the country,” as they all say), Renzi, who still has a lot of friends visiting him in the junkyard, will do all he can to avoid it.
And so will Berlusconi on the other side. True, for the first time, Forza Italia got fewer votes than its strange bedfellow, the Lega. Yet 14 percent is still not too bad for an 80-year-old convicted felon who, by law, could not even run for office! Until next year!! And I bet he is counting the days for his next chance to shine.
What happens next? Nobody knows. But, as is always the case with Italian politics, it will be interesting to watch.
Of course a new vote is always an option. However, what are the chances the outcome will be different? Close to none. Especially with this “monster” of a system.
But I wouldn’t be surprised if it happened: In 72 years Italy has had 65 governments. Let’s just hope, as they say in golf, to at least remain under par. Italy, and Italians definitely cannot afford to go above.