Italian Elections and Politics 2018: Yellow Tide

[Antonio the Sixth]

Renzi needs to leave.

I can't imagine he doesn't. This is a disaster.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Anyways, I'm predicting an M5S-PD coalition with Genitiloni as Prime Minister. Renzi is foolish if he thinks either party is gonna want him to be the head.

No chance in hell.

[Antonio the Sixth]

I don't know!

Maybe. I strongly believe that if there is a coalition it will be M5S-PD. As for Gentiloni I was going off of the betting markets.

I'm not a psychic and neither of us know what the party leaders are thinking.

Dude, you're some guy from Pennsylvania who's talking out of his ass. Other people in this thread have been following Italian politics for a decade or more.

[Antonio the Sixth]

apparently there's musings that Renzi may be dumped as PD leader in favour of a figure like Mayor of Naples Luigi de Magistris or President of Apulia Region Michele Emiliano.

De Magistris isn't even in the PD.

[Antonio the Sixth]

apparently there's musings that Renzi may be dumped as PD leader in favour of a figure like Mayor of Naples Luigi de Magistris or President of Apulia Region Michele Emiliano.

De Magistris isn't even in the PD.

Never said it was reliable musings.

It's really weird that we dropped the ball on the last PD leadership election where Renzi was re-elected against some hack and Emiliano. I don't remember it all.

I was there to talk about it. Yeah, Emiliano would have been nice, but I doubt even he can salvage the PD at this point.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Can somebody please explain what is going on in the Lucca collegio uninominale?

To wit, the center-left candidate has 26,51%, the M5S has 26,05%, while the center-right candidate has 19,97%... and the eletto sign next to his name. How does this happen?

I see the right at 28,38%.

[Antonio the Sixth]

If all currently leading candidates (most of which are already mathematically assured to win) do win, this will be the final tally.

House:
- Right-wing Coalition: 265 seats (42%)
- M5S: 227 seats (36%)
- Left-wing Coalition (incl. SVP): 121 seats (19%)
- LeU: 14 seats (2%)
- Italians abroad parties: 3 (0%)

Senate:
- Right-wing Coalition: 137 seats (43%)
- M5S: 113 seats (36%)
- Left-wing Coalition (incl. SVP): 59 seats (19%)
- LeU: 4 seats (1%)
- Italians abroad parties: 2 (1%)

The right is 51 seats short in the House and 21 short in the Senate - not nearly enough for them to hope to glean a few MPs here and there. And I don't see any other party possibly backing Salvini as PM, so that as much is a nightmare scenario we can probably exclude.

[Antonio the Sixth]

As much as I've defended Renzi in the past, he really, really needs to just f**k off now.

[Antonio the Sixth]

SWG polled PD voters on the possibilities for forming a government. 60% of them opposed supporting a M5S government, but 80% opposed supporting a Salvini government. It's not happening.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Huh, I didn't expect FI's electorate to still be so Southern given M5S's landslide there. Were they typically ahead of PD in the South?

[Antonio the Sixth]

Huh, I didn't expect FI's electorate to still be so Southern given M5S's landslide there. Were they typically ahead of PD in the South?

Yes and it wasn't even close in most places - the PD was obliterated in the South, which makes sense, all things considered.

Oh, splendid.

[Antonio the Sixth]

I should apologize to PittsburghSteel since it turns out that M5S-PD is in fact, a conceivable outcome (though it still probably won't happen).

In all likelihood, no one will agree with anyone and they'll go back to elections.

[Antonio the Sixth]

I expect PD to split between Renzi's supporters and a more traditional socialist left wing.

LOL, PD doesn't have a "more traditional socialist left wing" and hasn't had one for a long time.

[Antonio the Sixth]

I wonder, how likely is a minority government? Are they common (or at least thinkable) in Italy?

Because a minority government from M5S wouldn't be that hard to form. They could pass budgets, economic reforms, etc with support from PD and inmigration and other social stuff with Lega.

Minority governments with explicit outside support are possible (hell, the Monti government was technically a 0% government, in that none of its ministers hailed from a parliamentary party). Minority governments with no explicit majority are constitutionally impossible, since you need a confidence vote to start them.

[Antonio the Sixth]

If it is the choice of the President, a Sicilian, who gets first bid I would think it's fair to assume M5S is in better shape than The League, no?

Most Italian politicians don't think in these parochial terms, believe it or not. And Mattarella is a relic from an era where, whatever the other issues, people took their institutional role somewhat seriously.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Minority governments with explicit outside support are possible (hell, the Monti government was technically a 0% government, in that none of its ministers hailed from a parliamentary party). Minority governments with no explicit majority are constitutionally impossible, since you need a confidence vote to start them.

Imho Monti government was not a minority government
He passed at Chamber with 556 yes and 61 no, and to the senate with 281 yes and 25 no
probably no partisan government is a better classification

I know. I thought I'd been pretty clear on what I meant.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Yeah, I was honestly surprised to find out how much M5S lost in Piedmont and Veneto. I guess it makes sense given that they probably got many disgruntled Lega voters in 2013, but still, these are relatively large losses. Besides, Appendino in Turin actually seems to be doing a good job, unlike Raggi, so if there was a big city I expected M5S to tank, it would have been Rome.

Also, ayy lmao at the left gaining in Milan.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Yeah, I was honestly surprised to find out how much M5S lost in Piedmont and Veneto. I guess it makes sense given that they probably got many disgruntled Lega voters in 2013, but still, these are relatively large losses. Besides, Appendino in Turin actually seems to be doing a good job, unlike Raggi, so if there was a big city I expected M5S to tank, it would have been Rome.

Also, ayy lmao at the left gaining in Milan.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/feb/04/turin-five-star-movement-mayor-chiara-appendino

Ugh, great. Then there really is no hope that a Di Maio government nationally will turn out any better.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Oh, there's also Emiliano, governor of Puglia, who goes on television every day saying that PD should ally with M5S. But he's completely nuts.

I'm not fond of Emiliano for a variety of reasons, but at least he's one of the few people left in PD who isn't a stale, insipid hack.

[Antonio the Sixth]

This is why we need a M5S-Lega government right now. Preventing it means only delaying the inevitable.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Yeah, the M5S-right coalition is clearly starting to take shape.

[Antonio the Sixth]

This is why we need a M5S-Lega government right now. Preventing it means only delaying the inevitable.

That's what I never understood about using a cordon sanitaire. Making one's enemies into junior coalition partners seems far more effective at killing them than keeping them out of power.

I mean, the issue is usually what sorts of policy concessions you have to give them in order for them to join coalitions. Those often tend to be hard to swallow.

Also, you have Denmark as a major counterexample.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Can somebody explain to me how is it possible that Italian MPs just elected guy named Roberto Fico as president of Chamber of Deputies at the same time while guy with Italian surname became Prime Minster of Slovakia?

[Antonio the Sixth]

This is why we need a M5S-Lega government right now. Preventing it means only delaying the inevitable.

That's what I never understood about using a cordon sanitaire. Making one's enemies into junior coalition partners seems far more effective at killing them than keeping them out of power.

I mean, the issue is usually what sorts of policy concessions you have to give them in order for them to join coalitions. Those often tend to be hard to swallow.

Also, you have Denmark as a major counterexample.

Not to be too snarky, but I'd suggest a large part of the centre left's decline was due to finding immigration harder to compromise on than selling out the working class.

That's probably true, but I'd argue that the Third-Wayite left is also pretty happy to sell out immigrants when it has to. Look at Flamby's immigration policies, which were basically a continuation of Sarko's status quo (although still probably better than what Sarko himself had in store had he been reelected, since the French right is suffering a heavy case of cumulative radicalization on this). Or look at how the Gentiloni government has eventually done a 180 on the Letta-Renzi policies and basically criminalized the NGOs that rescued people in the Mediterranean, while breaking their campaign promise to offer a path to citizenship to even long-time legal migrants, as soon as they realized this was a losing issue with the Italian public. Obviously this sort of pusillanimity on the left's side only emboldens the far-right, just as their selling out of the working class has emboldened radical neoliberals.

I guess the American third-wayers are something of an exception in this context, but then again, remember that Obama deported more people than any President before him.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Why would one have to insist that one's only options are PD and Lega, unless one is being pressured to go with Forza or the centre-right as a whole?

...because he is? Salvini is skittish about breaking the alliance with Berlusconi, so he's trying to get him on board with talking to M5S while simultaneously trying to get M5S on board with talking to him. I can't see how he succeeds, but stranger things have happened in Italian politics.