Italy 2013: The official thread

[Gary J]

You did not think the German electoral system would work in Italy. I know comparatively little about Italy, but historically the German party system was pretty fragmented both in the Empire and the Weimar Republic.

The classic West German two and a half party system (counting the CDU and CSU as effectively one party at the federal level), took several elections to come about. As I understand the German case, the effect of the five percent threshold gradually eliminated smaller parties from the Bundestag. Once a party dropped out from representation it usually became a completely irrelevant minor party. Of course in more recent times Germany has moved into a situation where more parties are represented. The new parties do not seem to be disappearing, so German politics are becoming less stable.

Perhaps the effect of a German style electoral system would be, over the course of several elections, to reduce the number of parties in the legislature and make stable governmental  coalitions easier to form.

[Gary J]

How about Alcide De Gasperi for the best post war Italian Prime Minister prize? Founder of the Christian Democratic Party and Prime Minister from 1945 until 1953.

I would suggest that the challenges De Gasperi faced were greater than those of his successors. He seems to have been remarkably successful compared to those who came before and after him.

[Gary J]

How about PD announcing that, as public spirited Italians wanting to keep Silvio Berlusconi out of power, they will vote to give a Grillo party minority government confidence and supply; without requiring any prior agreement on what the minority government would do.

That way PD can choose the timing of the next general election, by deciding when to withdraw support. The Grillo party should take the major blame for anything that goes wrong whilst they are in government, as well as no longer being a nice shiny anti-system party.

I do not know if this sort of idea would make any sense to Italians. Is there some Italian concept, like the idea in British politics that the Queen's government must be carried on (at least sufficiently to delay the next election for about six months)?