Italian Elections and Politics 2022 - Our Time to Schlein

[Antonio the Sixth]

All the signs now point to a M5S-PD government. Both parties have officially given the green light to a new Conte government, and after meeting them this afternoon, Mattarella announced that he will receive Conte tomorrow at 9:30 am, almost certainly to formally give him the task of forming the government. In one of the most baffling developments of this surreal Italian saga, Conte somehow emerges from this crisis stronger than ever. He started off as Di Maio and Salvini's jointly-owned puppet, and was supposed to be gone after this whole weird experience came crashing down. Instead, he's not only going to stay at his post, but his role in the yellow-red government will probably be far more active than in the yellow-green one. This is partly due to the international stature he's gained over the past year or so (forging his reputation of a serious administrator who guarantees Italy's credibility while carefully treading the line between the established European order and the rising #populist international - that's how you get the endorsement of both Trump and Merkel!). It's also thanks to Grillo's (and, eventually, Zingaretti's) endorsement of his premiership, which is being read implicitly as a rebuke for Di Maio.

Speaking of Di Maio, the final serious hangup to resolve is his role in the upcoming cabinet. Zingaretti is insisting that there should be only one Deputy PM, from the PD, as the PM is now clearly identified with M5S in a way he wasn't last time. This, of course, would mean a major demotion for Di Maio, who is already about to lose his super-ministry that includes labor, industry and a bunch of others. So he's insisting on keeping his post as Deputy PM, while Zingaretti is insisting that he shouldn't. This time, however, there are indications that M5S is not united behind its leader, as several rumors suggest that many are tired of Di Maio's jockeying for a post. This might include Grillo himself, whose dramatic return to the forefront of M5S politics looks a lot like an implicit rebuke of Di Maio's leadership. The provisional solution to the Di Maio question seems to be to punt everything to Conte and Mattarella. It is, after all, formally the role of the President and his proposed candidate to form a government together. Will they snub Di Maio and risk his ire, or will they accommodate him and risk losing PD's support? And will whichever party loses this battle risk bringing down this newborn government? Stay tuned for the next episode!

The top PD figure in the upcoming government probably won't be Zingaretti, who still doesn't want to be that closely associated with the yellow-red experiment (toward which he was always lukewarm, and only okayed it under heavy pressure from Renzi's camp) and who would rather stay on as president of Lazio as long as he can. So, the most talked-about names for that crucial spot are Dario Franceschini (ex-DC, former Renzian who's taken his distances), or Andrea Orlando (Renzi and Gentiloni's Justice minister who has too turned sour on Renzi since 2017). Both are seasoned politicians, making the idea of this as a "new government" a bit hard to sustain. Substantively, the two parties seems to have an agreement in principle on the basics of a common platform, but we've seen very little of it so far. We know that there will have to be some significant reworking of the security decrees, and that the constitutional reform cutting MPs will take place but won't be immediate as M5S wanted (and it might be used as an occasion to impose a more proportional voting system, which would obviously go a long way toward defusing the Salvini menace).

Salvini, of course, is still crying wolf about the absolute horror of not calling elections when he wanted them called. He's found a common front with Meloni, who has supported new elections since March 5, 2018, and who would be a steadfast ally of Salvini's if such elections occurred. On the other hand, Berlusconi has been far less steadfast, and while he still pays lip service to the idea of a great right-wing alliance, he also never wastes an occasion to send signals that he's displeased with Salvini's anti-EU line. Survival instinct might force Forza Italia to terms with Lega if an election were to happen, but if that isn't the case, Berlusconi might have other opportunities to try to erode Salvini's leadership. Salvini has undeniably been weakened by this botched attempt at toppling Conte, and Lega has taken a noticeable hit in the polls (a loss of around 5 points on average). Of course, it remains the largest party in voting intentions, and summed with FdI it still forms an insurmountable electoral juggernaut under the current voting system (a system which might be short-lived, however, see above). So, Salvini is far from KO but there's no doubt that the past few weeks have weakened his hand.

And on that note, I will again check out and let others pick up from here until I have margins for new posts again. I hope this was a helpful summary.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Zingaretti and Di Maio are very close to a deal. The issue of what the heck to do with Di Maio finally got resolved when Zingaretti proposed a government with no deputies at all. Di Maio at one point seemed like he wanted to be deputy PM or bust, but eventually endorsed the compromise. We still don't know what ministry he'll get shuffled into, but we know it won't be his current super-ministry and won't be the interior either. It won't be the economy either, as the people talked about for that are figures with a European profile (for obvious reasons). Dario Franceschini will probably be the PD's pointman. Di Maio's final request is that the new cabinet not include anyone with a conviction, which seems reasonable enough (although it is admittedly controversial in a country like Italy).

We still know very little about the policy platform of the new cabinet (in particular, what will happen to the security decrees), but we should find out very soon, together with the full cabinet.

Tomorrow M5S's online members will be called to ratify the agreement, which they most likely will if it has Grillo and Di Maio's blessing. Then Conte should announce the new cabinet either the same day or Wednesday. They'd be sworn in soon after, and the confidence vote should be held Friday or Saturday.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Di Maio won another concession from Zingaretti in appointing a close ally as Secretary to the Presidency of the Council. Until very recently PD was intent on keeping that post for itself as a way to keep an eye on Conte (like Lega had last year). PD has given up a LOT from its original demands, and I honestly have no idea why given that they have much less to lose from a new election than M5S. Still, good news that they found an agreement.

Journalists have noted that Southerners are overrepresented in the new team, forming an outright majority of 11 out of 21. It makes some degree of sense given that M5S's voter base is largely Southern, but I like to think that they also want to spite the Lega. Also, there are only 7 women out of 21, not nearly the gender parity that Conte was supposedly trying to promote.

Lots of new (or at least not too seasoned) faces in the cabinet, although Franceschini did land a job in the end. The "heaviest" ministry for PD is obviously the Economy with Gualtieri, who will become the first explicitly partisan economy minister since 2011, which is a nice break from the post-Monti era of Italian politics. Toninelli is mercifully out of the infrastructure ministry, his run of it having been widely considered a disaster. De Micheli is close to Zingaretti and probably comes closest to being his "eyes" in the new government. She's relatively new and I'm curious to see how she does. Speranza from MDP is an interesting choice, since he has some very bad blood with the Renzi wing of the party. I'm also somewhat surprised that Nicola Morra didn't make it into the government team, he's a widely respected M5S parliamentary leader and is ideologically on the left wing of the party.

Swearing-in tomorrow morning, as Andrea said. Meaning we'll finally be rid of Salvini and be able to come back to a sane management of refugee arrivals.

[Antonio the Sixth]

That's a good point, yeah. I think there is genuine fear of an all-powerful Salvini among the PD's ranks (motivated both by cynical and altruistic considerations). It's hard to explain Renzi's about-face about governing with M5S or Zingaretti's insistence on making it work in the face of repeated humiliations otherwise.

Anyway, the new government was indeed sworn in this morning. Conte then swiftly called Von Der Leyen to indicate that, as rumored, Italy's nominee to the European Commission will be Paolo Gentiloni. He's a solid choice, a respected and seasoned international player who has been able to successfully argue Italy's case in Europe in the past. Even more important, he is being seriously considered for the Economic Affairs portfolio. Netting such a post would be a major diplomatic win for Italy, given that it is directly relevant to the budget negotiations that Italy repeatedly goes through with the EC (the current commissioner, Moscovici, was heavily involved in last year's budget fight).

Aside from that, the new Conte government's first act has been to challenge the constitutionality of a regional law in FVG on grounds that it discriminates against migrants. I don't know the details, but given who governs FVG right now, that's almost certainly a good move, and an obvious change of pace from the yellow-green days.

Confidence vote will be Monday in the House, Tuesday in the Senate.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Conte received the House's confidence tonight: 343 yes, 263 no, 3 abstentions, 21 absent.

Slightly wider numbers than expected, which bodes reasonably well for the Senate vote tomorrow (which should be a little closer due to more potential M5S defections). Conte's definitely got this.

Lega and FdI continued their histrionics today, yelling and holding up chairs inside parliament, and organizing a big demonstration outside. FI didn't participate, although they still had harsh words against the government. TFW Berlusconi is the adult in the room.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Confidence in the Senate as well: 169 yes, 133 no, 5 abstentions, 14 absent. Nugnes (former M5S) voted yes, but her three comrades didn't despite all of them hailing from the Movement's left wing. Three Senators for Life also voted yes: Liliana Segre (Holocaust survivor), Elena Cattaneo (stem cell researcher) and Mario Monti (lol). Two dissidents, one from each party: Gianluigi Paragone for M5S, Matteo Richetti for PD. Not the most comfortable majority, but it should hold. The government Conte 2.0 is now fully in power.

The winning for the new government doesn't stop here. Paolo Gentiloni today was appointed European Commissioner for Economic Affairs, arguably the most important job in the EC after its president, and an especially crucial job for a country like Italy that constantly has to negotiate with Europe over its budget. This seems to suggest that Europe is intending to be more lenient with this government than it was with the previous, which is probably the only way this government has a chance to succeed.

Now let's see what they make of all this.

[Antonio the Sixth]

This New Party is just because his massive Ego and lust for Power cant take PD anymore, thats all.

A big issue is that people in his faction were largely snubbed for jobs in the new government and were... erm... less than pleased about this.

As petty as Italian politicians (Renzi most certainly included) are, I don't think this was the real reason (or at least not the main one).

A Renzi split from PD has been rumored ever since he resigned the leadership, with a series of speeches that clearly signified he had scores to settle with his party. Zingaretti winning the race to replace him (rather than a more Renzi-friendly figure like Martina or a true loyalist like Giachetti) provided him with a decent excuse. In retrospect, it seems clear that he was getting ready to pack up right around when Salvini pulled the plug on the government, and that at least part of the reason Renzi made an about-face about allying with M5S was in order to give himself enough time to establish his party on firm electoral footing before the elections. All of this had been rumored throughout the past month, but I'll admit I dismissed those rumors because the idea of Renzi breaking out just seemed too ridiculous to me.

Well, clearly it wasn't too ridiculous to him. He's always been frustrated by PD's factionalism, and is very much the kind of guy who would rather be the first man in this village than the second man in Rome. Now he will have his own loyal troops, who will obey his every order, even if these troops make up 5% of parliament rather than 20% of it. Al is correct that this might help ratchet up votes from what is left of the decomposing corpse of Italy's moderate-liberal right. And if the Conte 2.0 government does in fact repeal the Rosatellum and revert to a full PR system, "Italia Viva" (lmao) will have a shot at carving up its own nice in Italian politics. However, this still feels like a dumb move to me, one that will mostly just sow confusion about this government and cement the already strong impression among most Italians that it's full of self-serving career politicians with petty concerns.

[Antonio the Sixth]

And still no revision of the Security Decrees. And a week ago M5S shelved the proposal to allow naturalization for children who completed school in Italy (which is f**king insane that it's not allowed already).

Clearly this government has decided that the way to beat Salvini is to be just as vile as he was. Somehow I don't think it will work.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Has there been any movement on electoral reform since the M5S-PD coalition began?

Surprisingly little. PD and M5S have more or less agreed to bring home the constitutional reform cutting down MPs and only then after that process is complete start worrying about electoral reform. There are some vague rumors that PD is not so keen on pure PR anymore now that Renzi can take away 4-6% out of them and still be viable. That seems to me like missing the forest for the trees in a downright suicidal way, but we'll see.

In the meantime, Salvini used the regions the right controls to put forward a referendum that would make the election law purely single-member FPP, the exact opposite of what was discussed by the current coalition. It's not clear whether his proposal is constitutional, since the resulting law might not be immediately enforceable (you'd be left with an election law that only specifies how you elect 35% of parliament and says nothing of the other 65%). The Constitutional Court will rule on the matter, probably at the beginning of next year.

[Antonio the Sixth]

On Sunday Umbria is going to vote for regional elections...great test match...is the M5S-PD axis winnable on national level? Is the Salvini-led centre-right a viable option on road to national election?

We shall see, but the trend in national polls has been pretty bad for the government parties this month. They (and by they I mean primarily Renzi and Di Maio) have been quibbling and bickering about the details of the upcoming budget law, and are continuing to do so even now that the official draft is out. Each is vetoing the other's proposal, with Renzi seeming to have embarked on a quasi-Norquist-esque anti-tax crusade while Di Maio insist on locking tax evaders up. They'll probably find some way to square the circle, but so far all it does is proving to the country that the M5S-PD-IV alliance is unfit to govern. So I'm pretty pessimistic about Umbria, though you never know.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Oh, a side note...if the right-wing candidate Donatella Tesei won, she'd be the third female Umbrian regional president in a row, after Maria Rita Lorenzetti( 2000-2010) and Catiuscia Marini( 2010-2019)...peculiar, thinking that as of today, in the rest of Italy, only Aosta Valley, with Nicoletta Spelgatti, and Friuli Venezia Giulia, with Alessandra Guerra, had had a female as their president of the region...either Spelgatti and Guerra were member of the League party.

Debora Serracchiani (then PD, now IV) was FVG's president before Guerra.

Renata Polverini (independent backed by FI) was also president of Lazio from 2010 to 2013 (she too had to resign after a corruption scandal). And there might be others I'm forgetting.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Oh, yeah, I'm definitely not denying that there are sadly very few women in leadership roles in Italy to this day, and that does make Umbria's case (and Coriano's) pretty interesting. Also worth noting that M5S and PD had initially agreed to run a woman as well (Francesca Di Maolo, the head of a Catholic institution for disabled people), but she declined the offer.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Turnout at noon was 20%. No idea why we don't have updated numbers yet.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Turnout at 7pm was 53%, a 13-point jump from the last election in 2015. Clearly the voters have internalized that this is a major test for the government and want to make their voice heard about it. We'll see what their voice actually IS.

Full results here in a little more than 2 hours: https://elezioni.interno.gov.it/regionali/votanti/20191027/votantiRI10000

[Antonio the Sixth]

Polls close in 30 more minutes actually (forgot that DST ended this weekend in Europe).

[Antonio the Sixth]

Well, this is bad.

Di Maio has already said that the experiment of alliances with PD is over, and frankly, it's hard to fault him. M5S voters will simply not accept electoral alliances of any kind. So whatever benefit there might have been in combining M5S and PD's strength is negated by the fact that M5S's strength just won't transfer here.

The only hope for this government to minimize their defeat (and let's be clear, it will be a defeat, whenever the next elections happen) is to implement an electoral system that's as proportional as possible. There are obvious downsides to this (for one, the voters would probably see it as the desperate trick it is) but it remains the only possible way to ensure that Salvini doesn't hold absolute power after the next vote. I hope they realize the stakes here.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Updated topic to something more topical (and fitting to the situation, since Conte has been under so many attacks lately that he's basically turning into a zombie PM).

[Antonio the Sixth]

  Any indication of whether the extension provoked much disagreement within the coalition?

Not really. They're too busy tearing each other apart over the budget bill.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Can somebody please explain the current platform differences between Lega and Fratelli d’Italia?

Lega still wants authonomy for Northern Regions...Hermanos de Italia, I don't think the are big fans of it.

The Lega still wants that? I thought they had basically given up on it when they expanded to the South

They still support muh federalism, though now they try to pretend it's not a North vs South thing (even though it very much is in practice).

The real differences between Lega and FdI are more cultural than ideological, though. They are heirs to very different political traditions, even if the two have now converged on a similar platform.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Can somebody please explain the current platform differences between Lega and Fratelli d’Italia?

Lega still wants authonomy for Northern Regions...Hermanos de Italia, I don't think the are big fans of it.

The Lega still wants that? I thought they had basically given up on it when they expanded to the South

They still support muh federalism, though now they try to pretend it's not a North vs South thing (even though it very much is in practice).

The real differences between Lega and FdI are more cultural than ideological, though. They are heirs to very different political traditions, even if the two have now converged on a similar platform.

Would you mind elaborating on this?

The short version is that FdI is a continuation of the postfascist current in Italy, with all that implies in terms of disturbing historical references (they're not overtly supportive of Mussolini anymore, but they also aren't really interested in condemning him - think of it sort of like the way Southern Republicans treat the Confederacy these days). This means they do best in Lazio and in some areas of the South, and their electorate has always skewed poorer. Meanwhile, Lega's core constituency are Northern small business owners, and their cultural tradition is steeped into weird Northern Italian folklore with neopagan undertones (they still have this whole ritual about drinking the Po's water). Salvini has moved them away from that, but the roots are still there.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Important to note that an electoral reform bill is currently working its way through Parliament, which would establish a German-like MMP system with a 5% threshold. There's likely to be some haggling over the details among government forces, but all of them have a vested interest in agreeing on something along these lines. And there's a non-insignificant chance that all or parts of Forza Italia back the idea too. It's far from a done deal, but it's something to watch.

[Antonio the Sixth]

The M5S tried to enter a stealth electoral path with PD by just not running candidates at all (with the assumption that whatever voter base they have left at this point will back PD over Lega), but M5S activists, in their infinite wisdom, decided otherwise. So now the M5S is running token lists in a race they know to be beyond hopeless, and probably just hurting their coalition partner in the process.

[Antonio the Sixth]

SWG projects 51% Bonaccini, 43% Borgonzoni, 4% Benini (lol)

If true, that's a solid result for the left given the circumstances.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Bonaccini takes the lead of the actual vote count, with about 10% of precincts counted.

Who did M5S voters vote for before 2013? The left or Berlusconi?

Yes.

Yeah, the original M5S electorate was a really weird eclectic mix, coming from all sides of the political spectrum and united mostly by their contempt for the establishment. On the other hand, the remaining M5S vote after Lega cannibalized its electorate is probably left-leaning, and their defection from M5S is probably what allowed Bonaccini to win.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Borgonzoni conceded, and the ER results are fast trending toward a solid win for Bonaccini, with an 8- or 9-point margin. This is actually starting to look like a bad night for Salvini. He could easily have spun a close loss as a moral victory, given that we're talking of the second most left-wing region in the country, but now that it's not even close, he clearly lost the expectations game.