Italian Elections and Politics 2018: Yellow Tide

[Antonio the Sixth]

So, Berlusconi was found guilty of corruption today, for bribing an opposition Senator into joining his party and toppling the Prodi government in 2008. He was sentenced to 3 years in jail.

Of course, none of this actually matters. He appealed the decision, and since the statute of limitation kicks in this November, there's no chance he will get to a definitive verdict.

[Antonio the Sixth]

And Renzi's school reform just passed.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Dennis Verdini, the leader of the pro-compromise faction of Forza Italia, is leaving the party with his supporters after Berlusconi made clear he's in full opposition mode against Renzi. This ensures that, even withoutthe PD's left, Renzi will probably have a majority to pass the Senate reform.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Dennis Verdini, the leader of the pro-compromise faction of Forza Italia, is leaving the party with his supporters after Berlusconi made clear he's in full opposition mode against Renzi. This ensures that, even withoutthe PD's left, Renzi will probably have a majority to pass the Senate reform.

Is Verdini going to form a new party?

Yes, though I'm willing to bet that it will be one of those parliamentary "parties" that, come the next elections, will either disappear or ally with one of the big fishes to survive.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Calderoli is a master troll, of the most vicious-yet-enjoyable kind. Obviously Italian parties in general have nothing to envy to US ones when it comes to finding tactics to filibuster legislation. The main difference is that Renzi has no qualm about "going nuclear".

[Antonio the Sixth]

According to Reuters, 176 of the 315 Senators have said they favour maintaining a system of direct election (i.e. oppose Renzi's Senate reform).

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/08/14/italy-economy-renzi-idUSL5N10P31N20150814


So how can Renzi work around this? How does one go about convincing 18 more Senators to vote themselves out of a job?

There are talks of new attempts to woo Berlusconi, but I don't know what Renzi would have to offer for him.

Otherwise, Renzi can give in and allow Senators to be elected, in exchange for the most important aspect, that is stripping away its confidence and part of its legislative powers.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Personally, I would say that any deal that removes the Senate's power on confidence is a good deal - including retaining direct elections.

That's my opinion as well. I'm not sure what are Renzi's specific goals, though.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Salvini is now supporting an alliance with Forza Italia in the next general election. "It's the only way to beat Renzi" he said.

Fair enough, you were right and I stand corrected.

Though it's still far from a done deal.

[Antonio the Sixth]

This is the mother of all battles for Renzi. His Senate majority has never been more precarious (aside from the PD left, several NCD bigwigs are also threatening not to support the reform). If he somehow manages to pull this off, his position will be considerably strengthened and it will be much harder for anyone to stop his other reforms (and after June 2016 he can go to elections and win a majority of his own). If he fails, this might be the end of his government, and only God knows what lies ahead for Italy.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Why are dissidents blocking the senate bill anyway? Pigheadedness? Seems like a strange hill for the left to die on, is what I'm saying.

Yeah, as someone whose politics are generally in line with them (certainly more so than with Renzi), most Italian leftists are morons. Their arguments are mostly whining and concern trolling about muh democracy being in dangers because we won't be able to elect Senators anymore. These sorts of shenanigans are part of the reason why I'm much more supportive of Renzi than what my ideology would normally entail.

Anyway, there will be a referendum if the reform passes in both houses. The procedure to amend the Italian constitution is pretty hard.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Yeah, pretty insane that you can go to jail for defamation in Italy. That law needs to be changed.

Grillo is still a joke though.

[Antonio the Sixth]

If Five Star Movement won the next election, could Grillo serve as PM with criminal charges?

Also what are the StarPeople's opinion on the senate changes?

Grillo officially can't be a candidate or hold any office under the M5S banner, because he already has a criminal record (he was involved in a car crash long ago). M5S politics are hilarious, aren't they?

[Antonio the Sixth]

Most polls show the Star-Eyed People narrowly beating the right, and the left narrowly beating the Stars.

Does Grillo have a "prime ministerial candidate" to act as his puppet in the next election Tony?

Until now, they have indicated Grillo as their "coalition leader" (the law doesn't actually mandate parties to select a PM candidate). If M5S won the election, my guess would be that their PM would be Luigi Di Maio. He's one of their most media savvy figures and since Grillo took a step back he's become the movement's main unofficial spokesman.

[Antonio the Sixth]

The accusations against Marino have always seemed fishy to me. It seems some PD bigwigs were always looking for an excuse to get rid of him. Sad to see him bow down to pressure.

[Antonio the Sixth]

On Wikipedia you can find the map of the new electoral constituencies as established by the decrees implementing the electoral law.

That is AWESOME news! I was actually looking for it for a while.

What article exactly?

[Antonio the Sixth]

On Wikipedia you can find the map of the new electoral constituencies as established by the decrees implementing the electoral law.

That is AWESOME news! I was actually looking for it for a while.
What article exactly?

It's in the Italian section of Wikipedia: Legge elettorale italiana del 2015 (scroll down the page to see it).
Sorry, I am not allowed to include links at the moment otherwise I would have posted it.

Thank you very much!

And welcome to the forum, BTW.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Indeed. A great day for Italian democracy.

Now, only three more parliamentary passages, followed by a referendum, and then we'll have a governable country.

[Antonio the Sixth]

In more objective terms, FdI is the ideological heir to Alleanza Nazionale, the nationalist-conservative party born from the reformation of the neofascist MSI under the leadership of Gianfranco Fini. Honestly, AN might be one of the only examples of a far-right party that genuinely reformed itself and abandoned its nastier elements (instead of the purely aesthetic changes you see most of the time in this kind of parties when they claim to have changed). By the early 2000s, Fini was a fairly reasonable right-winger and went out of his way to distance himself from racism and fascist nostalgia. Of course, not everyone in his party as so keen on abandoning the legacy, and the hardliners split to found various fringe parties, most of which eventually united under the banner La Destra (The Right), which only won 0.65% in 2013 and has since been irrelevant.

Meanwhile, Fini's AN merged with Berlusconi's FI to form the People of Freedom. However, by the last Berlusconi government Fini had become too moderate even for Berlusconi (interestingly, one of his main criticisms was also directed at the Lega's anti-immigrant stance). Fini was kicked out of the PdL and founded his own outfit, which crashed and burned in 2013 with a paltry 0.47%. Most of the former AN establishment, however, was still part of the PdL at the beginning of the Monti government. They eventually left in 2013, after Berlusconi announced his grand return and canceled the scheduled PdL primaries. Nowadays, their claim is to be the main nationalist voice in Italian politics, which entails a very anti-EU and to some extent anti-immigrant rhetoric (but not to Salvini's extent).

[Antonio the Sixth]

Who would lead the right coalition? Berlusconi, Salvini or some more palatable face?

Salvini, probably. Berlusconi is old news and desperately trying to stay relevant and not to be overshadowed by Salvini (too late, by this poll). Salvini's leadership is noted for expanding its support outside of the north and mellowing on the anti-South rhetoric of the Bossi era. They want to win and they see Salvini as their PM candidate

Will Berlusconi ever participate in a coalition where he isn't the leader? I'd have thought his ego was too big for that.

He's fighting for his political survival at this point, and jumping on the Salvini bandwagon is the only thing he can do.

[Antonio the Sixth]

"Kangaroo" is a term for a type of amendment that, if adopted, allows to bypass thousands of other amendments on the same subject (which, for almost every law in modern Italy, are introduced as a way to delay the legislative process).

M5S being hypocritical, self-righteous dickheads once again.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Gianroberto Casaleggio, co-founder and intellectual architect of M5S, died today in Milano at the age of 61. Not sure exactly what caused it, but it has been revealed that he had underlying health problems, including surgery for brain swelling in late-2014.


RIP in peace, brave FF.

Oh wow. RIP.

Say what you want about him, but M5S owes a lot of its success to his (admittedly utterly nutty) vision.

[Antonio the Sixth]

I have a little request, especially for the Italian posters:

Can you tell me something more about those guys:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democrazia_Solidale
Is this party something more than political arm of Catholic trade unions?

It's not even that. It's just a one- or two-people outfit and PD satellite.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Referendum on banning offshore drilling today,btw

Another vote I'm going to miss. I feel like such a terrible citizen.

Especially since YES will almost certainly win, but the result is only valid if 50% turn out, which means I'd be part of the problem.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Turnout was 32%. Renzi claimed victory in typical Renzi fashion.

[Antonio the Sixth]

If anyone cares, here's a map showing the YES vote as % of total registered voters by region (national average is 27.44%).



Apulia's President Michele Emiliano was one of the major proponents of the referendum.