Italian Elections and Politics 2018: Yellow Tide

[Antonio the Sixth]

Last December, the Constitutional Court struck down the majority bonus that was allotted under the previous electoral law. This effectively turned the electoral system in both houses into fullscale PR. While stripping the Senate of its confidence and supply powers would indeed have been sufficient under the previous system, now that alone would achieve little.

Are they removing the confidence and supply powers from the Senate?  And if not, what's the proposed electoral system for the Senate?

Yes, it's part of Renzi's plan. Basically, the idea is to turn the Senate into a Bundesrat-like unelected chamber of regions with merely consultative powers. However, this requires a constitutional amendment, which requires a veeery long procedures and potentially a referendum if things go wrong.

[YL]

I never thought I would say this, but maybe they should just use FPTP.

Has anyone actually tried modelling what Italian elections might look like using FPTP (or AV, or the French system)?  Would M5S get squeezed out?

[Antonio the Sixth]

I never thought I would say this, but maybe they should just use FPTP.

Has anyone actually tried modelling what Italian elections might look like using FPTP (or AV, or the French system)?  Would M5S get squeezed out?

Well, it's hard to model since it implies drawing uninominal electoral districts, which Italy currently doesn't have. The closest thing we have are Provincie, local government units based on cities and their surroundings. M5S won 21 of them, against 40 for the left and 49 for the right (these tallies might be misleading because there's huge variations in population). So yeah, geography probably works somewhat in favor of the established coalitions.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

The Italian Left is going to get horribly, horribly, horribly crushed at some point in the comparatively near future. This stuff is delusional and stupid.

To win elections you have to win people over. Sometimes a lot of people. You don't change the fycking rules because you suck at that.

[All Along The Watchtower]

The Italian Left is going to get horribly, horribly, horribly crushed at some point in the comparatively near future. This stuff is delusional and stupid.

To win elections you have to win people over. Sometimes a lot of people. You don't change the fycking rules because you suck at that.

You make a valid point, but how the hell do they win people over?

[Antonio the Sixth]

The Italian Left is going to get horribly, horribly, horribly crushed at some point in the comparatively near future. This stuff is delusional and stupid.

"is going to"? The left is getting continuously humiliated since 2008 at least.

Anyway, the idea that the left is going to lose the next election because of an electoral reform they enacted (and which Berlusconi also supports) is... rather bizarre. That's not the way politics work.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

That's a pretty ridiculous misinterpretation of my point. The issue is the attitude. That of a political class that wishes to reign rather than rule: voters hate that.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

I'm sorry if this comes across as at all rude, but why the fyck do you think so many Italians voted for a joke party last time round?

[Filuwaúrdjan]

You make a valid point, but how the hell do they win people over?

I would suggest that they start by implementing policies that improve the lives of ordinary people.

[Antonio the Sixth]

I'm sorry if this comes across as at all rude, but why the fyck do you think so many Italians voted for a joke party last time round?

The reasons are multiple, complex, and rather well-known by now. I don't know where you get the idea that I'm defending the Italian political establishment, especially since I'm pretty sure you have read some of my posts that weren't extremely kind toward them. The point remains that the joke party in question has only made things worse since it got into the parliament - and by making things worse I mean actively preventing good legislation from passing. So, excuse me if I don't really care for moral principles at this point. I want Italy to get out of the mess it is in right now, and the only way for this to happen is to have a strong, stable left-wing government. It might not be morally right to craft an electoral system based on this need, but it is the only possibility to avoid total disaster. I'm sincerely sorry this is the way thing are, but it is.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Who mentioned morality? What does morality have to do with anything?

[Swedish Rainbow Capitalist Cheese]

I want Italy to get out of the mess it is in right now, and the only way for this to happen is to have a strong, stable left-wing government. It might not be morally right to craft an electoral system based on this need, but it is the only possibility to avoid total disaster. I'm sincerely sorry this is the way thing are, but it is.

Yeah but rigging the system in an undemocratic manner isn't really going to solve the problem.
This system might as well create another Berlosconi undeserved majority, and even if it resulted in the out-come you wish for, no PD-lead government with its current establishment is going to be that stable left-wing government that brings Italy out of its crisis.

As AL says, the only real way to solve the fact that a left-wing alternative can't reach 50%, is for the left to reform itself into a credible political force, not bend the rules so they can rule with-out popular support.   
 

[Antonio the Sixth]

Yeah but rigging the system in an undemocratic manner isn't really going to solve the problem.This system might as well create another Berlosconi undeserved majority, and even if it resulted in the out-come you wish for, no PD-lead government with its current establishment is going to be that stable left-wing government that brings Italy out of its crisis.

First of all, you can't say the proposed system is "rigged" or "undemocratic". This just isn't true. It's certainly deeply flawed and criticizable on many different respects, but you can't say it's undemocratic, unless you think British FPP is even undemocratic. The system assigns a majority bonus on a fairly rational basis, and in order to get it a coalition needs to garner a significant amount of support (about 3/8th of the vote) or win a 2-way runoff. It might not be entirely fair, but the same could be said of many systems.

And yes, I acknowledged before that there was a risk Berlusconi could win. I think that's a risk worth running. I guess that says a lot about how desperate I am, but yeah, at this point I'd rather flip a coin and have half a chance of saving Italy and half of dooming it, rather than staying in the situation we are right now.

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The left is doing exactly that with Renzi right now. Probably not in a way Al would approve of (neither do I really, though I acknowledge the improvement in relative term), but still. If Renzi had been the candidate in 2013, he'd have won handily and by now a good deal of problems would be behind us. But even then, it's not like it would reach 50%. Let's face it, it's pretty hard for an established political coalition to win over 50% of votes in any European country nowadays. Everywhere you have an anti-establishment populist force that messes up with the bipolarized system - even in Sweden, as you know! Thus there are basically three ways to deal with that situation: either you find ways to integrate the populist parties into the established system, like in Denmark (but that obviously can't work with M5S), or you accept the idea of having a quasi-permanent grand coalition in power (and we see how well it worked in Italy...), or you establish an electoral system that makes it possible for a majority to emerge. Most countries have opted for this solution in some way or another: France, the UK, and even Spain in a milder form. I don't see what's wrong with Italy doing the same thing. Again, we can discuss the technicalities of this system, but the general idea behind it isn't something particularly new or controversial.

[EPG]

Most European countries have proportional electoral systems, and they've all accepted the principle at European level. There are ways to help coalitions over the majority line, like Germany's 5% threshold or Ireland's transferable vote in small constituencies.

However, there's practically no European electoral system that delivers a one-party majority on 29% of the vote (some recent opinion polls suggested the PD could win with 29%). Even the British system wouldn't do that. The majority bonus gives the same right to rule to parties winning 29% and 45%, under the correct circumstances.

Italy is certainly in a more serious situation than other European countries, but a government elected by 29% of the people would have real legitimacy questions in enforcing its reforms , particularly when that 29% seems to regard the other 71% as more or less craven or obstructionist.

[Swedish Rainbow Capitalist Cheese]

It's certainly deeply flawed and criticizable on many different respects, but you can't say it's undemocratic, unless you think British FPP is even undemocratic.

I do think FPTP is undemocratic.

[All Along The Watchtower]

You make a valid point, but how the hell do they win people over?

I would suggest that they start by implementing policies that improve the lives of ordinary people.

OK, but can't you apply that same logic to the Right? What has Berlusconi done for ordinary people?

(Not purely rhetorical btw-this is something I've thought about. Seems that the Left in a lot of countries, Italy included,  must have concrete, tangible reasons for ordinary people to vote for them. The Right doesn't seem to have this particular issue to the same extent.)

I guess the basic issue is that Italian politics have been terrible for quite a while now.

[Antonio the Sixth]

It's certainly deeply flawed and criticizable on many different respects, but you can't say it's undemocratic, unless you think British FPP is even undemocratic.

I do think FPTP is undemocratic.

And I would tend to agree with that.

Still, I'd argue that this system is still less undemocratic than FPP thanks to the runoff provision.

[Хahar 🤔]

I'd argue that it's far less democratic than FPTP, which for all its flaws is very transparent; each voter votes for their local candidate, and the candidate with the most votes is elected. What exactly is a vote cast for in this system? Nobody knows.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

I'm sorry, I have to post this as a perfect example of pots-meeting-kettles

(speaking of a Renzi speech)

..."There was populism, there was demagogy, but very little that was concrete," said Paola Taverna of the anti-establishment Five Star Movement...

?!?!

[Andrea]

PD candidates for EU elections

www.partitodemocratico.it/doc/267035/i-candidati-alle-elezioni-europee-2014.htm

[Antonio the Sixth]

PD candidates for EU elections

www.partitodemocratico.it/doc/267035/i-candidati-alle-elezioni-europee-2014.htm

All the list leaders are women. That's a pretty refreshing sign.

[justfollowingtheelections]

PD candidates for EU elections

www.partitodemocratico.it/doc/267035/i-candidati-alle-elezioni-europee-2014.htm

All the list leaders are women. That's a pretty refreshing sign.

And 4/5 are exceptionally good-looking

[World politics is up Schmitt creek]

PD candidates for EU elections

www.partitodemocratico.it/doc/267035/i-candidati-alle-elezioni-europee-2014.htm

All the list leaders are women. That's a pretty refreshing sign.

And 4/5 are exceptionally good-looking

That's a pretty irrelevant sign.

Antonio, what if anything do you know about these people as individuals?

[justfollowingtheelections]

PD candidates for EU elections

www.partitodemocratico.it/doc/267035/i-candidati-alle-elezioni-europee-2014.htm

All the list leaders are women. That's a pretty refreshing sign.

And 4/5 are exceptionally good-looking

That's a pretty irrelevant sign.

You live in a different world than most of us if you believe looks don't play a role in politics.

[World politics is up Schmitt creek]

PD candidates for EU elections

www.partitodemocratico.it/doc/267035/i-candidati-alle-elezioni-europee-2014.htm

All the list leaders are women. That's a pretty refreshing sign.

And 4/5 are exceptionally good-looking

That's a pretty irrelevant sign.

You live in a different world than most of us if you believe looks don't play a role in politics.

I ought to have said that it should be an irrelevant sign.