Italy 2013: The official thread

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Oh wow. I didn't even know there were regional elections going on. Looks like FLI and MpA played a big role.

FLI doesn't count for anything. Micciché is just a former PdL member who is anything but a moderate. Since FLI could not support PdL's official candidate Musumeci, and since PD did not want them, they joined Micciché.

Just looking at the percentages, it's easy to see that FLI's 4% counted for very little.
Also, as it often happens with local elections in Southern Italy, a lot of those votes came from Micciché voters who were told (or had a personal interest) to support also the smaller lists, so as to get more people elected.
So it's a bit silly to look at the percentages of the small parties.

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Crocetta isn't likely to get an overall majority in the regional chamber though.

Last I heard, he was going to get 40 deputies out of 80.
It shouldn't be too hard to govern overall.

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Btw, Crocetta is a gay poet, and a former communist.
Also fought mafia as a mayor of Gela.

Talk about an interesting candidate...

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39 out of 90 then. 7 needed for a majority... but I guess the M5S deputies won't be as radical as Grillo is.

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This was a RAI-debate, right? Were there semi-nude women involved?

Nope,it was on Sky.
2 million viewers,apparently.

As for Renzi's tie,he was forced to wear one. He didn't want to in the first place.

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Some help, please, from the Italians: is this March 10th date the day for the Parliamentary elections or just the regional Special elections?

just the regional special elections...for the moment
PdL would like to have the parliamentary elections on the same day. Nothing has been decided yet though. However, pushing regional elections from January to March makes a big election day more likely than before.

Why is the PdL so eager to be annihilated?

It's been clear for a long time that,after Berlusconi stepped down,the center-right would have been nothing but a bunch of undisciplined clowns and wh*res,people with no ideology and no shame,who will fall into irrelevancy within months.

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I think he's trolling to take away attention from the center-left primary. Or at least that's what I hope...

Anyway, I totally forgot the youngest candidate in the running for the center-right leadership: Alessandro Cattaneo, the 33 year old Mayor of Pavia, Lombardy. So the PdL can't be called the party of just the old guys.

No one ever said that.
PdL is full of youngsters who don't know jacksh*t about politics,economics or even life.


FWIW,just came back from voting.
I voted for Renzi,but I'll be quite fine with the result no matter who the final winner is.

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Does anybody have some more information on Verso la Terza Repubblica? There's not much information on wikipedia or elsewhere, apart from them being centrist and that they want Monti to continue after the election. The party founders include Andrea Riccardi, minister of International Cooperation in Monti's government, and the Ferrari chairman  Luca Cordero di Montezemolo. I can also see that they have polled 4.8 and 8.5 in the two polls made since they started.
I guess that Monti does not need to or want to run as he is senator for life.

Would they want to go in an alliance with Casini and Fini at the election?

Their policies, pro-austerity, pro-europe and pro-higher taxes?

An electoral reform has still not been agreed on, so i guess with the current electoral system we will have a centre-left majority (PD, SEL, IdV?) in the Chamber of Deputies and a massive chaos in Senate.

At the moment,an alliance with IdV is not possible. Di Pietro has lost any sense he had.
Also,they are polling below the 4% threshold.

As for the Verso la Terza Repubblica,I guess they'll just ally with UDC and FLI and try and get a few seats in the Parliament.

[SPQR]

Renzi also won Umbria,Marche and Valle d'Aosta.
Anyway, 3.1 million is a success,also given the fact that there was a big debate concerning the registration process,which was very complex and many people were afraid it would depress turnout.

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Renzi is NOT a centrist.
He is a center-left candidate,who supports biological testament,ius soli,civil unions and adoption for homosexual couples...

[SPQR]

Renzi is NOT a centrist.
He is a center-left candidate,who supports biological testament,ius soli,civil unions and adoption for homosexual couples...

"As centrist as he's being made out to be" didn't mean he's centrist overall. Just that there's more of an emphasis on the center part of the center-left label by those that dislike him. Unless I'm missing why he's having such difficulty with the left wingers of the party. I can see the establishment left wingers disliking him because he's reform minded but Vendola voters aren't against him for that reason...

I'm guessing they were all asked about gay adoption in that debate. I read though that it was actually Galan who came out as the first candidate to support gay adoption.

Yeah,he's made up to be way more centrist than he actually is,and that certainly damages him in the primaries.
That's also why I strongly doubt he has any chance in the second round.

Don't know about Galan,but anyway he dropped out of the primaries. He's too much of a decent politician to fit in there.

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I have no problem with Bersani as a person,and very few people do actually.
What I and many others don't like is those who back him,and who inevitably influence his program and the eventual cabinet.

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RCM: That sounds like Renzi is more socially liberal than Bersani but more economically moderate, unless I misread your post.

Yes.

Even though one of the main problems in this sense is that Bersani's economic views are not that clear.
For example,he was the Minister who made plenty of liberalizations back in 2007,and he said he would do so again if he became PM.
So yes,he has a more leftist background overall,but apart from saying that he would modify the labour reform and the famous Article 18,not much else is clear.

At least Renzi has clearly stated that he would support public dismissals in order to reduce the debt.


Antonio V,how exactly is PD "shamelessly neoliberal"?!?

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The official rules are : people can vote but only if they have a valid justification for not voting last Sunday,ie they need to bring a plane ticket.

...

[SPQR]

Not really,but on the other side primaries are an extremely new concept for Italian politics.
The first ones were in 2005 and were more of a plebiscite for Prodi;afterwards we had a few,but they were never really close at a national level,so I understand that the rules still need some work.
After all,in the US you've been doing them for decades and there is still so much talk about caucuses,open/closed primaries and so on.

So yeah,the "justification" part is silly,but on the other hand I wouldn't want Renzi to win thanks to hundreds of thousands of people who didn't vote in the first round but suddenly became interested in the runoff.

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I've been told the whole "pay for participate" thing is to keep center-right voters from voting in the center-left primary. Is there not party registration for the public or is that typically reserved for the politicos? If the former, why not just conduct it like our "closed primary" system but specify which parties can participate (since it isn't just PD)?

The 2 euros are just for financing the primaries+the GE campaign...

Anway,registration to parties here is not nearly as big a "thing" as it is in the US.
Only REALLY passionate people register,so it would have been pretty pointless to have a closed primary.
Bersani would have probably won comfortably in that case.

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Polls are about 60-40% for Bersani.

Anyway the debate is up and running,Bersani doing much better IMO.

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Renzi as usual brought up interesting themes,especially concerning the past error of the center-left,but overall Bersani seems way more knowledgeable,especially on the economy and on the foreign policy.

I'll vote for Renzi,knowing that he'll probably lose, and hoping that my vote can contribute to changing the background of PD.

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No idea. Maybe one of our resident Italians can answer.

I can't.
Nobody really cares about who receives the money,in all truth.

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The ads just informed on how to register if someone couldn't vote last Sunday. They didn't say "Paid for by Renzi" or "Vote Renzi!" anywhere,
Everything is being blown up out of proportion.

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Voted for Renzi again,in the end...

I am expecting something like 55-45 Bersani.

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My prediction: Renzi to win 52-48.

When are the results coming in ?

Lol.

Polls close at 8PM,from 9PM the results will start coming in.

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Seriously, what is it that makes Italian leftists so stupid?!?

Enough.



61-39 Bersani in the end.
Wider margin than expected but there weren't really any chances for Renzi.

Great speech by Renzi,really good for the unity of the party.

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True, but rather unlikely unless PD thoroughly self-nukes and Berlusconi runs a pitch-perfect campaign.

Luckily there's not only Berlusconi. We have to see if Bersani's coalition reach a certain percentage, expecially at the Senate.

Luckily,any center-right alternative to berlusconi is just as bad.

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Nobody knows or cares about Meloni,really.