Italian Elections and Politics 2018: Yellow Tide

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  Are there indications that the working class demographics are starting to shift away from left wing parties, similar to what we see in other countries like Austria?

Oh, absolutely.

Unemployed and blue collars overwhelmingly vote M5S, and before then Lega Nord had been making inroads in Northern Italy with these categories.
More recently, public employees have started to shift away from PD as well, possibly due to their problematic relation with Renzi.

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What I forgot: A very high percentage of Italian citizens identifies as Catholics, but to very different degrees. Today a majority of them is non-practicing.

The combination of Catholicism and left-of-center (even hard-left) politics has been quite common for about 50 years. From my personal experience there are many people with left-wing political ideas who are at the same time practicing Catholics and active in Catholic-inspired organizations.

That being said they are a minority. Parties whose support is positively correlated with active Catholicism are Forza Italia and New Center Right.

Waldensians (there are not so many of them) are on average quite left-wing.

Well, Catholic-inspired organizations working on social issues end up being quite close to left-wing ideas; look for instance at Sant'Egidio. So I think it's a pretty coherent process, whereas "catto-comunist" has always been seen as insult.

More recently, if I recall correctly, the majority of those going to Church frequently voted Yes at the referendum, whereas more tepid Catholics and atheists voted no. Which is also what I saw while campaigning...Sunday mornings in front of the churches were amongst the few times we'd have a positive reception.

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Could the Left and MDP join an alliance, or would that be untenable?

They probably will in the end, yeah. Not that that will prevent both from getting trounced.

Actually, that's exactly the sort of alliance which facilitates the trouncing process. Reminds me of Sinistra Arcobaleno and the likes.

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The first phase of the primaries for PD's secretary, in which only its members could vote, ended yesterday.
Renzi got 69%, Orlando 25%, Emiliano 6% (barely managing to qualify for the open primaries of April 30th, since the threshold was set at 5%).

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2 million voters are way above expectations, which were of about 1,5 millions.
Orlando spent most of his campaign talking about how anything below 2 millions would be a failure...

Also, it's worthy of notice how bad Orlando's campaign was. He was seen as the secret weapon of PD's minority, and he failed badly. Not just because of his result, but also because of how flat and weak he was throughout the last 2 months.

Having said that, wonderful result for Renzi. A strong mandate from the party's members last month, and an even stronger result yesterday were just what he (and PD as a whole) needed to face the next general election's campaign.

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Didn't hear much about Italy recently.

What's the status of electoral reform ?

Pretty much in standby waiting for yesterday's primaries.
I'd love to go back to a "mixed system" such as the Mattarellum (70% of seats with FPTP, 30% with PR), but I am afraid too many parties are just fine with a horrible PR law such as the one currently in place, so that there will be only minor changes (such as setting the same threshold for House and Senate).

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I hope that they will soon get what the Constitutional Court is telling them and make a fair and lasting electoral system instead of (in vain) trying to get around the clear requirements set by the court. Make it full PR and completely open lists, something like a return to the 1946-1993 law.

Oh God, please no.

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I hope that they will soon get what the Constitutional Court is telling them and make a fair and lasting electoral system instead of (in vain) trying to get around the clear requirements set by the court. Make it full PR and completely open lists, something like a return to the 1946-1993 law.

In principle I agree with you, but in the current context of Italian politics, this would be a recipe for disaster.

I'm not sure it is the best idea to focus to much on the current political context. When Italicum was put into place, many figured it would clearly mean PD-victory as they were way ahead in polls. With the majority bonus, Renzi could carry out his sweeping reforms, which would be "a good thing". However, in the current state of affairs, Italicum would probably lead to a majority for Grillo and the Five Star Movement, which I don't believe as many sees as a "a good thing". I believe the best solution is to simply let parliament reflect the views of the population. If this results in a "Populist United Front" of M5S, Lega Nord etc with a majority, then so be it

It's not just that.
It's that the PR system which characterized the First Republic was the key element behind many of Italy's problem: fragmented governments with indecisive majorities which relied on policies aimed at the short term (which built our huge public debt) and looked at the special interests of small parties or even individual deputies.
So I am deeply against it not because of its impact in the current situation, but because of its future repercussions...

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I hope that they will soon get what the Constitutional Court is telling them and make a fair and lasting electoral system instead of (in vain) trying to get around the clear requirements set by the court. Make it full PR and completely open lists, something like a return to the 1946-1993 law.

In principle I agree with you, but in the current context of Italian politics, this would be a recipe for disaster.

I'm not sure it is the best idea to focus to much on the current political context. When Italicum was put into place, many figured it would clearly mean PD-victory as they were way ahead in polls. With the majority bonus, Renzi could carry out his sweeping reforms, which would be "a good thing". However, in the current state of affairs, Italicum would probably lead to a majority for Grillo and the Five Star Movement, which I don't believe as many sees as a "a good thing". I believe the best solution is to simply let parliament reflect the views of the population. If this results in a "Populist United Front" of M5S, Lega Nord etc with a majority, then so be it

It's not just that.
It's that the PR system which characterized the First Republic was the key element behind many of Italy's problem: fragmented governments with indecisive majorities which relied on policies aimed at the short term (which built our huge public debt) and looked at the special interests of small parties or even individual deputies.
So I am deeply against it not because of its impact in the current situation, but because of its future repercussions...

Probably hard to cast all of Italy's problems on the voting system. If a majority of Italians insist of voting for parties, that don't want to do necessary changes and perhaps even make the situation worse, then that it's how things will develop. And if that is how the Italians want to vote, then there is quite a big probability that even in majoritarian systems, the Italian voters would just give even bigger powers to those parties doing the wrong things. And in terms of general stability, it would at least help if they make a new electoral law, that is not obviously going to be struck down in the Constitutional Court like the Italicum.

I am not saying the voting system is the cause of all of Italy's problems, but a PR system would certainly amplify them, as shown during the First Republic. There is no no such thing as a theoretically perfect electoral law, it all depends on the framework. And Italy's worst aspects come out in force with a PR system in place.

If a populist party wins in a majoritarian system so be it, but Italy cannot stand other decades of governments in which no one is held truly accountable.

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PD's proposal is the best one by far in today's scenario.
I would prefer a lower % of "proportional seats", but whatever, anything is better than a pure PR system.

At least it provides proper local representation, while also giving hope of some party getting an absolute majority.

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What an utter disgrace.

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Conventional wisdom right now is that the election will be held in October - but that's conditional on the electoral reform actually passing (which ain't done till it's done).

And just this morning it seems that the electoral reform won't pass, after a few messy votes in the Lower House.

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Yesterday there was the 1st round of local elections, with a few important cities voting (Genoa, Palermo, Parma, Verona amongst them).

The M5S is out of all the 2nd rounds, even in places where it should have done very well like Palermo (it's very strong in Sicily) and Genoa (Grillo's hometown).
And even more ironically, Pizzarotti (the Parma mayor who has been kicked out of the Movement because of his critical stance towards Grillo) has reached the second round quite comfortably.

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Big win for the center-right, bad defeat for PD.
What's especially worrying is the number of defeats in Lombardia (which was one of the places where Renzi had improved PD's results the most), Liguria, Toscana, Emilia Romagna, Lazio, Marche. Areas which all lean center-left.
At the same time, PD gained in many places near Naples and in Puglia (such as Lecce). Surprising.

In the few second rounds which it had reached, M5S gained most of the times. Still, these local elections are far from a victory for them.

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And what about MDP? Did they go along with PD in this election ?

In Wikipedia they are listed as a part of the centre-left coalition.

I don't know about Campo Progressista, did they run in this elections at all?

Nope, Campo Progressista at the moment is still non-existant.
As for MDP, in some places it ran in coalition with PD, in others it ran alone. In many others it didn't run at all.

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At first blush, I think a problem with this system is how the Alliances will determine their FPTP candidates.

Will the largest party in the coalition take all the FPTP candidacies?

Will they be split proportionally between the parties in an alliance? If so what proportion?

There is also the issue of which party will get the safe seats, marginal seats, no-chance seats for an alliance.

Presumably this is all down to negotiation between the parties inside an alliance, however this is a source of instability in itself.

That's a big deal for the center-right, if it is to get into a coalition, since the Lega Nord would probably want most of the Northern seats, where they would probably win. But that way Forza Italia would probably lose its status of center-right's main party, at least in terms of seats.

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So, today there are local elections in Sicily. PD will almost surely lose so main race is between M5S and berlusconian centre-right. Turnout for 12 p.m was ca. 9%.

Yep, pretty much.
PD only won last time because the right was split between the more centrist Micciché and the right-winger Musumeci. This time instead they all united behind Musumeci. Polls give him a very, very tiny lead over M5S's Cancelleri.
At the same time, MDP and the left-wingers chose a different candidate from PD's Micari, Fava. So the two things to watch will be the winners between Musumeci and Cancelleri (both polling in the mid-30's, so neither will have a majority in the regional house of deputies), and between Micari and Fava.

At the same time, there are also municipal elections in Ostia, one of Rome's 15 municipalities (the only one on the sea). It was put under the administration of an external commissioner after Mafia Capitale and the arrest of its former president, PD's Tassone. Since then, both the M5S (which won with record numbers the Roman elections in 2016) and Casapound's neofascists have done very well, also thanks to...dubious connections with the local criminal families.
Today is only the first round, and it's widely expected that M5S and the right (which has already said it would gladly receive Casapound's endorsement in the second round) will get the first two places. Turnout should be really low, though, also because of a thundestorm throughout the day.

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What happened to that gay communist that was randomly leader? Not popular?

Retired from politics after a few bad results from SeL.
Anyway, all as expected in Sicily. As bad as expected for PD, extremely disappointing for M5S, who were close to winning the region already in the 2013 general elections.

Meanwhile, scary results in Ostia. M5S and the right go to the second round, PD is third with 13%...and fourth come the neo-fascists ("third-millenium fascists" is how they consider themselves) of Casapound with 9%.

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With the current law, it all depends on the uninominal seats. By winning almost all tossups, one could obtain an absolute majority even with around 37% of the vote.

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The center-right is surging at the moment, and the electoral campaign (one of Berlusconi's strengths) still has to start...nonetheless, hard to see a clear majority at the moment.
Well done to the radical left anyway, as usual playing the role of the "useful idiot".

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Well done to the radical left anyway, as usual playing the role of the "useful idiot".

As usual no reflection on the part of the liberals, just the fault of the radical left as everyone surges past both.  

As usual, commenting without any actual knowledge of the political landscape.

Part of the radical left has agreed to form a coalition with PD after some talks on policy, others (most, former members of PD) instead have rejected it based on pure, personal hatred of Matteo Renzi. The radical left is led by people such as D'Alema and Bersani, dynosaurs responsible for the worse defeats of the Italian center-left in the last years.
They don't have ANY concrete proposals, apart from reintroducing the "articolo 18", a law which prevented those with open-ended contracts from being fired, and actually extend it to all firms and not just those with more than 15 employees (as with the old articolo 18, in place until 3 years ago). I am not kidding. Not one single proposal. And with their claims of being the "real left" and "wanting to challenge PD in every uninominal seat", they'll only manage to help the right (extreme right, actually...look at Lega Nord and Fratelli d'Italia) win.

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Call the coalition with D'Alema, Bersani, Grasso radical left is ridicolous, they can be called center left, they are no more leftist of the 2013 coalition.
a radical left coalition is in birth: Potere al popolo, power to the people, they started from a "centro sociale" of Naples

Who are they?
I am fairly active in Italian politics and never remotely heard of them...


Anyhow, Pisapia, IDV and the Greens should go with PD, as should the Radicals.
MDP, Civati and Sinistra Italiana (Fassina and co.) are running together under the "Liberi e Uguali" electoral cartel, with Senate President Pietro Grasso as their (formal) leader.
Ingroia has just formed a new party, but it will get less than 0.1%, whereas Rifondazione Comunista should run independently.

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Who are they?
I am fairly active in Italian politics and never remotely heard of them...

Anyhow, Pisapia, IDV and the Greens should go with PD, as should the Radicals.
MDP, Civati and Sinistra Italiana (Fassina and co.) are running together under the "Liberi e Uguali" electoral cartel, with Senate President Pietro Grasso as their (formal) leader.
Ingroia has just formed a new party, but it will get less than 0.1%, whereas Rifondazione Comunista should run independently.

not so active... search potere al popolo on facebook, the CPN of PRC just yesterday or was saturday, voted for join.

the greens from today to 6th called online vote for the coalition
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Eight thousand likes on Facebook...no wonder I had no idea they existed.

Anyhow, leftbehing, I was referring to the fact that you were already defining the issue in a "liberals vs radical left" way, when in fact Liberi e Uguali is just the result of personal hatred and not of some revolutionary platform.

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Breaking: Pisapia and Alfano won't run at the next elections.

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Does anyone know ?

Questions for Italian posters:

* How likely is it that the Right Bloc will form a government with M5S after the election, if they fail to win a majority of seats on their own ? What are the other most likely coalitions then ?

* What are the positions of the major Italian parties (or what did their representatives say in recent days) about ÖVP/FPÖ's proposal to offer Austrian citizenship to South Tyrolians ? I know that the right-wing Fratelli d'Italia spoke out against it, but what about the Democratic Party, the M5S, Lega etc. ?

Thx.

Thanks.

Didn't know that Italians are fed up with South Tyrolian autonomy ...

They should actually be happy about it, because South Tyrol is the wealthiest and most advanced region in Italy because of that autonomy statute and they (together with Trient) are shoveling billions of €s in surplus money to Rome every year to prop up the weaker Center of Italy and especially the South.

The case you mentioned is a bit of a false myth really. These autonomous provinces manage to keep 90% of the taxes for themselves, and hostility comes a lot from Lombardy and Veneto, wealthy regions who have to contribute for a larger margin. Veneto especially has experienced the detachment of some municipalities that have joined the autonomous region of Friuli to get a better fiscal regime. The center of Italy is not that weak as well.

The fiscal reasons for hostility are mixed with historical reasons, as you probably know some South Tyroleans are hostile towards Italians for the forced annexation of their land after the Austrian defeat in WWI, the fascist prosecutions under Mussolini and some restrictions on cultural identity even in the after-war period. Some Italians are hostile towards South Tyroleans for the racist contempt they experience from them, the terrorist attacks that prompted the Democrazia Cristiana to grant an unprecedented autonomy to this province in order to make violence cease, and the fact that many terrorists are celebrated in local TVs and streets names as freedom fighters. I wonder what would happen if Italians celebrated fascist thugs in such ways. Some terrorists have escaped justice for the victims they made and are now living in Austria or Germany and are still involved in anti-Italian activities.

Having experienced this hostility on myself as a tourist there, but also having met lovely people from South Tyrol, I have to say the fiscal autonomy is partly put to very good use to provide excellent services, but also partly wasted in a very "Italian" way. Some separatist South Tyrolean politicians are even more Italian than they will ever admit . Examples of those "Italian political customs" are: the outrageous retributions of local politicians - the President of the Autonomous Province of Bolzano/Bozen has a salary that matches the head of state's; the scandalous amount of local politicians' annuities despite recent cuts; the defense of those annuities, with a national debate sparkled when a South Tyrolean politician often contemptuous towards Italy, Eva Klotz - daughter of one of the aforementioned "freedom fighters" - defended her retribution funded not only by local but also national taxes; the practice of rigged public contracts to favor some local enterprises; the creation of useless administrative substructures for political reasons.

With a nationalist government in Austria I expect these local politicians to use the situation to get even more favorable deals, probably adding fuel to the fire.

Pretty much this.
Anywhow all parties reacted quite angrily to the proposal, from what I remember.

Anyway, latest projections give the center-right 20 seats away from an absolute majority in the Senate, thanks also to the sweeping of almost all northern seats.

IMHO, the main things to watch in the election will be:
1) Who will be the first party: M5S (as polls currently suggest) or PD? This could influence Mattarella's decision on who will hold the first talks in an attempt to have a working majority.
2) Will the center-right get an absolute majority in both the house and the senate? Will its smaller parties (animalists, centrists, Tremonti and Sgarbi's party...) push it over the line?
3) Will LeU crash and burn relatively to the polls (think of Sinistra Arcobaleno in 2008 and Rivoluzione Civile in 2013)? How many uninominal seats will it cost to the center-left coalition?


As for the center-left coalition, it should be composed of: PD, Civica Popolare (centrist list led by Lorenzin, Minister of Health, together with Casini, former head of UDC and speaker of the Lower House between 2001 and 2006, and Dellai, former president of the province of Trento), Insieme (Greens, Socialists and some former Prodi followers), and it should also include Bonino's pro-Europe list (but it will be formalized next week).