Italian Elections and Politics 2018: Yellow Tide

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Centre-right coalition formalized

Is Ncl going to be part of the Center-right coalition since I do not seem them represented in this picture ?

NCD doesn't exist anymore.
Alfano won't run, a part went to the center-right coalition in the centrist "Quarto Polo", while others (such as Lorenzin) will be part of the center-left coalition in the "Civica Popolare" list.

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NCD doesn't exist anymore.
Alfano won't run, a part went to the center-right coalition in the centrist "Quarto Polo", while others (such as Lorenzin) will be part of the center-left coalition in the "Civica Popolare" list.

I was not talking about NCD
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Centre-Right

Instead I was referring to Ncl
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Us_with_Italy

My understanding was that Ncl will be part of the FI LN Fdl alliance.  Not sure if that took place ?

Oh, ok. Yes, they are the "Quarto Polo" I was referring to.
Anyway, nobody here refers to these new parties with their acronyms, hence the confusion (also because presumably they will disappear the day after the elections).

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If you want to know more about the electoral law, the constituencies and the possible outcomes there's a specific website where you can register: http://rosatellum.info/

It won't be for free, though.

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If you want to know more about the electoral law, the constituencies and the possible outcomes there's a specific website where you can register: http://rosatellum.info/

It won't be for free, though.

The website is out - 490 euros for a one-year subscription...

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The website is out - 490 euros for a one-year subscription...

significa che stanno fuori di testa? anche in inglese?

sorry for my use of the italian

Rather than giving them 500 euros I'll develop a mini-model myself during my study breaks!

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Actually that's an interesting thing - in an unintended and quite unnoticed way Italian politics has returned to old habits (supposedly banished forever with the fall of the First Republic) in that formal office has become decoupled from political power, with the position of a politician within his/her party often mattering more than any governmental post.

It was a pretty obvious consequence of the result of the constitutional referendum.

Back to the First Republic, back to a PR system. It's actually a semi-miracle that there is an uninominal component in the electoral law.

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OK, something I have been wondering about - can anyone explain what the... purpose of the minor parties in the Centre-Left coalition are? like, who are pro-europa and why are they standing?

Italian politics is a wasteland of splinter groups and micro-parties, and it is felt in the major parties that some of these groups have enough quality people in them to be worth allying with.

For instance, Piu Europa are made up of tiny splinter parties led by Benedetto della Vedova (elected last time in alliance with Forza Italia but now a junior minister for the PD government), Emma Bonino (formerly a presidential candidate and Foreign Secretary), Bruno Tabacci (a former Christian Democrat who has been around forever) and another group who are basically pointless but have three deputies. Piu Europa therefore has enough decent people and enough of a distinct brand to appeal to liberals who might not otherwise vote for PD, and the coalition will therefore benefit electorally.

The reason why micro-parties have so many decent people is because the party system in Italy is constantly changing (for instance, Insieme includes the Greens, who used to be quite a major centre-left ally but subsequently collapsed, but there are still a lot of former Green deputies involved with the party and some of them aren't awful) and was obviously completely reshaped in 1994. Della Vedova and Bonino were prominent figures in the Italian Radical Party, which was relatively important in the 1970s and 80s, but made some stupid decisions and now the former Radicals are spread far and wide in different clientelist micro-parties and factions within major parties.

The clientelism is also key, of course.

This.
Insieme also contains the PSI, Italian Socialist Party, which is obviously the shadow of what it used to be, but can still get a few votes here and there.
Civica Popolare, instead, is the centrist party of Health Minister Lorenzin, and other people who used to be with Alfano in NCD and then decided not to rejoin the center-right coalition, together with former House Speaker Pierferdinando Casini (who has been controversially given the Bologna district for the Senate).

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You must be logged in to read this quote.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/02/05/silvio-berlusconi-says-illegal-migrants-social-time-bomb-race/

You must be logged in to read this quote.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/feb/05/berlusconi-pledges-to-deport-600000-illegal-immigrants-italy-election

Amazing cheek that the same fellow who denounces an immigrant explosion and crime wave associated with it had signed the 2003 EU refugee pact that brought this all about.

And the Five Star Movement voted against its reform in the EU Parliament, only a few months ago...

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Any further on what M5S is hoping to achieve from this election. On the last page there was an article posted saying they were considering a pact with Lega Nord, who are already part of the Right coalition?? If the Right don't manage a majority, what then? Possibility enough right-leaning M5S members defect, or effectively provide them confidence?

By now, who's most likely PM? Would Berlusconi's people accept to keep Gentiloni to not have Renzi again? And would a M5S minority work?

Hard to see a minority M5S government work; the only possibility would be for Lega Nord and FDI, but numbers probably won't add up.

Unless the center-right coalition gains an outright majority on the 4th of March, it will disintegrate the day afterwards.
PD will never go into government with either Lega or FDI, so any Great Coalition would be limited to PD, FI (but the two of them, plus minor allies, probably won't have the numbers to do it), and perhaps LEU and M5S together. But that would be quite a push.

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Does Italy do proportional representation, constituency seats, a combination, or something else entirely? It seems like it would be proportional or similar based on the number of small parties with a shot at representation.

A combination of both, which is far more complicated and arcane than it really needs to be. It's a new electoral system for this election, explained here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_electoral_law_of_2017

They used a completely proportional system from WWII to 1994, but that ended badly. A different completely PR system was used from 2006 until last election, and also ended badly, hence the two -
 count 'em, two - attempts at reform by the current government.

If I understand right, it isn't that complicated, just an ordinary parallel voting system, similar to Mattarellum, but with much less FPTP and much more proportional seats.

It's gone from a 1:1 to a 2:1 proportional to FPTP split.
Also, voters won't have separate ballots for proportional and FPTP voting, and also won't be able to split their vote between the FPTP candidate and the party for the "proportional part".

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Hard to see a minority M5S government work; the only possibility would be for Lega Nord and FDI, but numbers probably won't add up.

Unless the center-right coalition gains an outright majority on the 4th of March, it will disintegrate the day afterwards.
PD will never go into government with either Lega or FDI, so any Great Coalition would be limited to PD, FI (but the two of them, plus minor allies, probably won't have the numbers to do it), and perhaps LEU and M5S together. But that would be quite a push.

I think the chances of a M5S-LN-FdI coalition are underestimated.  M5S and LN both has to just over-perform current polls a bit (most likely through depressed PD turnout) and I think a majority for this bloc seems quite possible, especially if LN sweeps a lot of the Northern FPTP seats with FI support.

The problem is that the M5S membership is inevitably going to have to vote for the coalition.

The M5S membership votes for whatever the leadership decides to, in their fake "direct democracy".

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Vague thought about the FPTP vote - glancing at the 2013 results, M5S's support seems to be fairly evenly spread across the country. In which case, they might stand to lose out fairly badly in the FPTP constituencies if polling continues to show a (rough) 3 way split?

Absolutely.
As it is, they only have 3 safe seats in the Senate, for instance.

And in the South most seats are too close to call between the right and M5S. If the gap increases just a bit, the right might sweep them and gain a majority.

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Will 5SM see a backlash in Rome and Turin, I wonder?

They'll probably win no seats in Turin. In Rome they'll win a couple in the more degradated peripheric areas, but anyway it'll be interesting to see how they fare after the Raggi administration disaster. Even though it was obvious that Raggi's huge victory in the 2016 run-off was never going to last.

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Hard to see a minority M5S government work; the only possibility would be for Lega Nord and FDI, but numbers probably won't add up.

Unless the center-right coalition gains an outright majority on the 4th of March, it will disintegrate the day afterwards.
PD will never go into government with either Lega or FDI, so any Great Coalition would be limited to PD, FI (but the two of them, plus minor allies, probably won't have the numbers to do it), and perhaps LEU and M5S together. But that would be quite a push.

I think the chances of a M5S-LN-FdI coalition are underestimated.  M5S and LN both has to just over-perform current polls a bit (most likely through depressed PD turnout) and I think a majority for this bloc seems quite possible, especially if LN sweeps a lot of the Northern FPTP seats with FI support.

The problem is that the M5S membership is inevitably going to have to vote for the coalition.

The M5S membership votes for whatever the leadership decides to, in their fake "direct democracy".

Are the votes rigged, or are the voters just unduly influenced by the opinions of their leaders?

It's both, really.
In the first place, some votes have taken place all of a sudden, with no previous announcement, and have lasted for ridicolously short timespans, meaning that the leaders' preferred choice could easily win thanks to the votes by their hardcore fans (and keep in mind that those who are eligible for voting are already hardcore, longstanding supporters). The first I can think of is the vote on their attempted alliance with ALDE at the European level.
In the second place, often the possible choices are very biased, meaning that even though there is a vote, there is no real choice.
So, the leadership already has a loooot of weight in these votes.

Then, there is the whole issue on the lack of transparency by the Casaleggio & co. (the owners of M5S - for those of you who don't know it, the M5S is not a party, as they proudly announce every other day, but is rather privately owned).
The platform that they use for all of their internal democracy, Rousseau, is easily hackable, as shown a few months ago by a group of hackers. They brought the evidence to Casaleggio and co., only for the M5S leaders to say that there was a political attack against them...
In addition to the possibility of external attacks, there is no proof that the owners of the platform AKA the owners of the M5S (who are strictly on the leadership side - one may even say that it is them who pick the leaders...) do not alter the votes. They just give the final results, and even then, sometimes they do it only after weeks - for instance, this was the case for last month's primaries on the candidates for this GE.


So, yeah, a LOT to say about M5S' whole "direct democracy" bullsh**t.

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What times does the polls close and are there links to live results ?

They close at 11 p.m. local time (5 p.m. EST). Not sure about live results.

I remember back in 2013 the results started to come out the morning of the day after the election. Not sure if they will do the same this time.

Erm, no. Results are always given live on the page that FrancoAgo posted right before me.
This year, it will be more complicated due to the new electoral law, with the FPTP/proportional split. For instance, ballots in which the voter marks only the name of the coalition's candidate for the FPTP part, and not that of any party, will then be allocated proportionally across the parties that make up that coalition; but this is done only once all sections from a FPTP seat are counted and reported to the Ministry.
I read an article a couple of days ago on Il Foglio in which the author explained that the biggest parties in the coalitions (PD, FI) might be thus underestimated a bit (up to 1/2%) in the initial reports with respect to parties with no coalition (M5S, LeU).

Anyhow, semi-final results are expected around 2 AM for the Senate, and around 5 AM for the House of Deputies. Then, on Monday afternoon, ballots will be counted for the two regional elections in Lazio and Lombardia.

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Ok have found this!

http://www.raiplay.it/dirette/rainews24?channel=RaiNews

and, I'm sure someone's already explained, so apologies, but are voters allowed to vote for a FPTP candidate of Party A and then Party B in the PR section, or not?

Thanks!

Nope.

There is only one ballot for the House of Deputies, and one for the Senate.
In each case, you can either vote
- Only for a party - in which case the vote goes to the party for the PR part and automatically to the candidate for the FPTP part
- Only for the FPTP candidate - and these votes will then be split between the coalition's parties proportionally to their PR votes
- For both a party and the FPTP candidate, BUT they must be in the same coalition (so, essentially, the vote for the FPTP is just an useless repetition).

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Hard to say who would form a coalition, at least a majority one. M5S is pretty much off the table for any coalition, since any coalition would include an establishment party. A grand coalition similar to Germany's would be extremely unstable, and the only other possibility I see is a minority government.

Just hopping in, like I always do before an election. Always follow the thread and issues off-and-on, until 2 weeks out, get up to speed, then try and participate in the thread.

Anyway, it actually is actually within the realm of possibility for the right-wing alliance under Berlusconi to win a majority outright. Polls before the embargo didn't put him that far off, and pollsters constantly said that there were a bunch of FPTP seats in the south between the right alliance and MS5 that were extremely close and would decide tge result. If Berlusconi gets close, but not exactly a majority, he will probably get it by flipping MPs as you do in Italian politics.

Right on point.

If the center-right wins almost all marginal FPTP seats in the south, and gets around more than 37% nationally, they have a real change at gaining an outright majority.
Essentially, the things-to-watch will be:
FPTP part:
- How PD fares in urban seats (especially in Genoa, Turin, Milan, Rome) and the "peripheries" of the so-called Red Land (so, places like Massa and Lucca in Tuscany, or Rimini and the northern part of the Marche).
- How the battle between M5S and the center-right ends in the South. There are tons of too-close-to-call seats between Campania, Puglia, Abruzzo, Calabria and Sicily between them. Again, if the right sweeps them, they have a real chance of gaining a majority even with a sub-40% national result.

PR part
- Whether PD does not go below 20% (=outright disaster) and whether the center-left coalition can manage to go above M5S. With a very good result for +Europa, it might be possible.
- Whether M5S is the first parliamentary group, and whether it can break the 30% threshold. If it were to go below its 2013 result, it would be a catastrophic defeat.
- Who gets the most votes between Forza Italia and Lega Nord
- Whether LeU can stay at 6/7%, or drop towards 4%.
- Whether small, far-left party Potere al Popolo is draining votes from M5S and LeU, as it seemed before the polls blackout.
- Whether neofascist Casapound gets more than 1%

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Anyhow, a journalist friend of mine gave me the average of the unpublished polls from the last 14 days.
Not much has changed with respect to before. M5S slightly up, LeU slightly down, +Europa ending very strongly.
What remains to be seen is how undecideds will break (reminder: many of them voted for PD in 2013 and/or 2014), and whether there were any structural errors in the polls.

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Anyhow, a journalist friend of mine gave me the average of the unpublished polls from the last 14 days.
Not much has changed with respect to before. M5S slightly up, LeU slightly down, +Europa ending very strongly.
What remains to be seen is how undecideds will break (reminder: many of them voted for PD in 2013 and/or 2014), and whether there were any structural errors in the polls.

I think if turnout is higher than projected (and it is projected to be really low this time for Italian standards: 65-70%), so maybe in the 72-78% range, it would be better for the PD. They would likely not drop below 20% in such a scenario.

Not one poll has shown PD below 20%, so that would be the surprise, not the opposite.

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I want to be an optimist, but the results might be much more dramatic:

PD 23%
+E 4%
CP 1%
I 1%
CENTER-LEFT: 29%

FI 17%
LN 13%
FdI 4%
NcI 2%
CENTER-RIGHT: 36%

M5S 26,5%

LeU 4,5%

PaP 2%
CPI 1%
Others 1%

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Back home from the polls before going back for the long electoral night.
Personal feeling: M5S above 30%.

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Have now seen the 7PM exit polls thanks to a well-placed source...green-yellow wave.
I've never hoped this much that an exit poll was complete garbage.

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M5S does not have a freakishly high %, but it sweeps plenty of FPTP seats.
Lega...well, Silvio, watch out.

Again, exit poll, and in the past they have flopped big time. But they are an official exit poll, and not made up numbers, at least.

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There is no point in speculating over nothing.

It's the exit poll produced for Sky, so it's not exactly the auburgines and oranges crap seen elsewhere.
I absolutely hope that it's wrong, but it's A) realistic and B) scary as hell.

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4:30 AM here, just got back home.
Seems like the 7 PM exit polls I posted were spot on...

What a nightmare.