Italian Elections and Politics 2018: Yellow Tide

[palandio]

It's so sad. The leftists (particularly economic leftists) within the PD (Cuperlo, Fassina) are almost completely tied to the apparatchik wing, whose personification is D'Alema. D'Alema and Bersani have still this certain ideological post-communist flavor but on actual politics they are almost as centrist/third-wayist as Renzi.
The anti-apparatchik left-wing (Marino, Civati etc.) will likely remain in their 15% niche.

Altogether the situation looks like:
Big post-communist apparatchik center (D'Alema etc.)
+ centrists that have made their peace with Bersani (Letta, Franceschini)
+ pro-apparatchik Christian left (Bindi etc.)
+ left-wing, Young Turks (Cuperlo, Fassina, etc.)
vs.
Liberal right-wing (Renzi etc.)
+ Chritian conservatives (Fioroni etc.)
+ ex-social democrats (Fassino, Chiamparino, Veltroni, etc.)
+ social-democratic modernists (Serrachiani etc.)
vs.
Anti-establishment left-wing (Marino, Civati, etc.)

The problem is that you can't build a coalition around the post-communist apparatchik center without including parts of it. Particularly many nostalgic party members still vote for people that pray left-wing ideology and then do what the apparat wants. An open primary is a chance for Renzi because many voters will vote for a candidate they feel has majority appeal.

[palandio]

Fabrizio Barca, who had been minister under Monti and is kind of a left-wing economist, has been called by a person from Radio 24 that faked Nichi Vendola's voice. What Barca told "Vendola" was basically that De Benedetti, owner of the Espresso media group (e.g. the daily La Repubblica) is trying to press him into the Renzi government and that more in general De Benedetti is the man behind the recent political operations.

Any opinions on how serious this can be taken?

[palandio]

+Lombardia+Veneto+Lazio+Abbruzzo+Piemonte (though I think the latter could change)

[palandio]

Well I understand why Berlusconi "likes" the ex-commies: They have difficulties to win general elections, particularly when the South is involved. Bersani 2013 is the best example.

I don't understand why some leading ex-commies like D'Alema are cordial with Berlusconi. Does it have to do with trying to establish bipolarism which gave them the chance to get into government regularly? Don't they understand that one anomaly (non-commie majority vs. commie minority) has been replaced by another anomaly (Berlusconi, followers, allies and occassional allies vs. the rest)?

[palandio]

As long as Renzi is at the top there will be no relevant right-wing break-away from the PD, since Renzi himself is perceived as relatively right-wing (at least from a political-cultural-historical-rhetorical point of view, which matters most in the PD).

Generally the PD has proved to be surprisingly stable since its foundation, if you take into account that the PD is a cartoonishly factionalist big-tent party. An invisible force keeps them together and there has been no electorally relevant break-off. (Let's see how Pastorino fares in Liguria, but still the Civatiani and Cofferatiani are only a small faction.) An electorally relevant split would see several governors, party big-whigs and many deputies and senators leaving the party. That hasn't happened yet.

Maybe the invisible force that keeps the PD together is still Silvio. So when he finally leaves there might be a split in the middle between the center-left and centrist factions of the PD. If the centrists then unite with moderate center-right politicians we might see the rebirth of the White Whale (some sort of Neo-DC) and overall a political landscape quite similar to the First Republic. On the other hand politics in Italy have been shaped by leaderism for the past 23 years (the PD and to a lesser degree the Lega being the exception) and probably there is no way back.

Forza Italia is dying now and will not survive, the big question is what (or who?) will take its place. Keep in mind that in contemporary Italy parties come and go. (Except for probably the PD and quite likely the Lega.)

[palandio]

That seems to be a realistic scenario to me, though it's highly unlikely that 5 Stars will last for 45 years (like the PCI did) or even 20 years. In my mind, 5 Stars as it works now is highly leader dependent. And hence 'perpetual' may be the wrong expression.

[palandio]

Ok, so I tried to find out in which lists the parties of the radical left that supported The Other Europe with Tsipras stay:

LIGURIA
SEL and majorities of PRC and PdCi seem to be in Net on the Left in support of Pastorino.
The head organiziation of Other Europe seems to support Other Liguria.

APULIA
SEL and PdCI are both running their own lists in support of Emiliano. (Thanks Cris, for making me stumble over Communist Party, because I came to find out that the PdCI [Party of the Italian Communists] has changed its name to PCdI [Communist Party of Italy], which is closer to PCI [Italian Communist Party].)
PRC is running in Other Apulia.

TUSCANY
All radical left parties in one list?

VENETO
New Veneto includes SEL and Greens, but apparently also a PRC minority faction (mainly from the chapter of Venice proper).
The PRC majority and the PCdi seem to be in Other Veneto.

UMBRIA
SEL seems to be allied with the PD.
The others seem to run as Umbria for another Europe.

[palandio]

At least one of the pollsters is a joke pollster of epic dimensions.

[palandio]

The split within the left is what caused the defeat in Liguria, as a dissident PD candidate endorsed by Civati and former union leader Cofferati acted as a spoiler.

Yes and no.
On the one hand no, because Pastorino's alliance included a fair number of radical left-wingers that cannot just be added to the PD result. Taking this into account, a hypothetical United PD in support of Paita would still have fallen short by ca. 2%.
And on the other hand maybe yes, because the infighting has damaged the political image of the center-left in Liguria. I could immagine that quite a few soft PD supporters might have been driven towards abstention and some also towards Toti, Salvatore or minor candidates.
In my eyes the combined Paita+Pastorino result is still quite an underperformance.

[palandio]

Parma is an excellent example of the Anybody but the PD mentality.
In my eyes another striking example is the 2013 Messina mayoral election:

1st turn
Accorinti 19,939 votes (24.02%)
Calabrò (UDC+PD+six other lists) 41,453 votes (49.94%)
Garofalo (Center-right) 15,130 votes (18.49%)
3 other candidates (New Alliance, Five Stars, Reset!) each below 3%

2nd turn
Accorinti 47,866 votes
Calabrò 43,017 votes

And now look who Accorinti is: http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Renato_Accorinti_con_la_bandiera_della_pace.jpg

As it seems almost all of the center-right votes seem to have gone to a left-wing activist like Accorinti. Grillo at least uses "neither left nor right" rhetorics.

[palandio]

Yes, these Scenario C numbers just don't add up:
Even if we would assume that 100% of FI, LN and FdI voters go to the united center-right, this is 31.3%, slightly less than the PD's 31.5%. If you then take into account that the transfer to PD exceeds the transfer to the united Center-Right for all other parties (according to the poll), there is no way the Center-Right candidate beats the PD candidate.

Either this poll has inconsistent numbers or some guy from the journal screwed the numbers up before printing.

[palandio]

When FdI split from PdL in 2013 I thought it was just a tactical move prior to the elections in order to better appeal to ex-AN voters and get them to vote for the Center-right alliance. Since then FdI has pursued a slightly more independent course.

[palandio]

  Does anything stand out as surprising with this map?

There is a very strong correlation between the 2014 European election results (where the Democratic Party got 40.8%, you might also want to add the South Tyrolean People's Party at 0.5%) and the referendum results (40.9% yes).

Notable exceptions are:
- The south with the exception of the rather small Abruzzo and Molise regions. The south of Italy has never been a center-left stronghold, but the referendum results are clearly below what could have been expected given the European election. This holds particularly in Sardegna and Basilicata, which have usually been more center-left friendly than say Sicily. Also the Yes vote in Naples city was really low.
+ In South Tyrol the referendum result (63.7% yes) is exactly equal to the sum of PD and SVP (15.7% PD + 48.0% SVP)
- In the Trentino on the other hand, where the SVP-PATT had 12.0% in 2014 and the PD had 42.3%, only 45.7% voted yes.
+ In Lombardy (Milan city in particular) and to a lesser degree Piedmont support for the referendum proposal was clearly stronger than the 2014 PD results (which were already very high compared to the weak numbers during Berlusconi's best times).

Another interesting observation: In (post-)industrial Genoa city the traditionally right-wing up-scale quarters were the only ones where yes prevailed. The traditionally left-wing working class quarters rejected the proposal by clear margins. Similar patterns seem to have occurred in other cities. (Rome? Turin?)

[palandio]

Switch is probably a bit to much, at least in Genoa. The new outline in party politics is that the working class quarters trend heavily towards Grillo (and still think of themselves as left-wing), with above-average PD support in some of its old strongholds. The bourgeois quarters will still vote for right-wing and moderate parties, not for the PD, even more so without Renzi.

To me it seems more like the genoese bourgeois quarters have voted for stability, for Renzi's perceived moderateness and for a constitutional reform that might also have been a right-wing proposal under Berlusconi's rule. They would run away as soon as they see a Green with a far-left past (like van der Bellen).

The genoese working class quarters would (at least at the moment) not give a majority to anyone the perceive as right-wing. Grillo might be perceived by some political observers as a crypto-fascist, but for many voters it's more of an anti-establishment thing. In some sense it was the same thing with the Communists during the Cold War.

[palandio]

Rejoice, Antonio!

D'Alema threatens to split from the PD if there are new elections without a new electoral law.

[palandio]

It's happening!

Parts of the anti-Renzi minority faction inside the PD are splitting from it to form a new party, the DP (Democrats and Progressives), also including some of the earlier PD splinters.

I'm really not sure how this is going to end. It's the first time that several of the real bigwhigs are leaving the PD (Bersani, D'Alema, Rossi, Errani, etc.), so if they manage to pull much of the ex-DS (Democrats of the Left) vote, they could get up to 15%. On the other hand I doubt that they really have that much influence left, so they might as well end up as an epic train-wreck in political nonone's land.

Emiliano (governor of Puglia) is staying within the PD to challenge Renzi.

[palandio]

Interesting!

And 3.2% is really bad, I'm really wondering why they're committing political suicide.
Only thing is that Progressive Camp founded by Ex-Milan mayor Pisapia was also polled and got 3.9%.

Another poll by Lorien:
http://scenaripolitici.com/2017/02/sondaggio-lorien-24-febbraio-2017.html
According to this poll the maximum potential for the DP is at 11%, but there's a heavy overlap with Progressive Camp and the PD itself.

All of this once again confirms that since 2007/08 to the left of the PD there isn't really that much space anymore (except when you count Grillo-style eclectic populism). And it gets worse because usually when all the left-wing splinters combine forces the result is much less than the sum of its components.

[palandio]

Well, it's like you said. There has been a lot of churn the past few years. That being said, my take is the following (anyone who has something to add or correct is invited to do so):

Democratic Party
In the big northern agglomerations like Milan, Turin, Genoa or Venice, the PD is traditionally strong in the working-class quarters and suburbs. In the red belt (mainly Emilia-Romagna, Toscana, Umbria), the PD has also quite some rural appeal (traditionally even more than in the cities). But I think that things are changing and the PD is transforming into a party of the urban progressive middle class.

Five Star Movement
Students, unemployed people, underemployed people, people in precarious jobs, people doing jobs below their qualifications, protest voters.

Forza Italia
I think that to understand Berlusconi's politcal sucess, you have to know that about one third of the Italian workforce is self-employed or employed by a family member, a much higher number than in other European countries like Germany (barely over 10%). Support for Forza Italia is clearly above average in these groups. Add to these parts of the conservative bourgeoisie, Rete-4-watching housewives and some Southern Italian clientele networks.

Lega Nord
In the North similar to Forza Italia, although weaker in the cities and stronger among rural voters. I would say that during the transition from the first to the second republic, the Lega has been able to attract some former PCI voters, while some former PSI voters went to Forza Italia.

Democrats and Progressives
Particularly in former PCI strongholds you will find a lot of PD party circles that also serve as a kind of bar for retired men sitting on plastic chairs, playing cards and discussing politics. Some of them may defect to the Democrats and Progressives.

New Centre Right
Umm, I would guess mostly some Southern clienteles?

Brothers of Italy
Don't know.

Italian Left
Nowadays probably strongest among the urban alternative crowd, both radical chic and people who are frequenting occupied social centers, but don't live there. The old Communist Refoundation, which through some of its splinters can be considered as some kind of predecessor of the Italian Left. It already had this alternative, alter-globalist vibe, but at the same time it was quite good at gathering the traditional working-class commie nostalgics. The present-day Italian Left lacks this feature almost entirely.

[palandio]

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.

[palandio]

It's not even clear what the electoral law for the next election will be. The Constitutional Court has ruled most of the new Italicum law to be constitutional (including an eventual majority bonus for parties/lists [not coalitions] getting over 40% of the proportional vote). But one of its main features, the assignment of the majority bonus to the winner of a runoff in the case that no party gets over 40%, has been ruled to be unconstitutional.

Given that at the moment it seems unlikely that any single party would get over 40%, the outcome with an Italicum without runoff would be proportional representation of all parties over 3%.

In this case there would be no need of a center-right electoral alliance. The only ones who should worry because of the 3% threshold are Mdp, Italian Left, Ap and Pisapia's Progressive camp.

[palandio]

A Left-MDP unitary list is definitely possible in my opinion.

[palandio]

Orban-style electoral law

Well, to me the Hungarian electoral law seems to be as democratic as the electoral laws of developed democracies like the US, UK, Canada (FPTP), France (majoritarian with run-off) and Germany (effectively proportional). Calling it Orban-style associates it with Orban's authoritarian tendencies, but it is not some evil, manipulative trick engineered by Orban, it is just the Hungarian electoral law. It is not the electoral law's fault that the Hungarian opposition is unable to mount a cohesive, competitive challenge. I completely agree that Orban's regime is not a full democracy under every aspect, because democracy does not just mean the rule of the majority. But Orban would get a solid majority under many different electoral laws.

Regarding Italy I prefer electoral laws with (local) run-offs (or IRV, AV etc.) over FPTP. Incidentially Hungary does have run-offs.

(And yes, the proposed Rosatellum is much closer to the Mattarellum than to the German system.)

[palandio]

Yes, I completely agree with you. The PD when talking about its newest electoral law innovations tends to come up with the dumbest comparisons like "It's like the Spanish electoral law, except for being completely different". And now it's German style because "German style" sounds so efficient, developed and functional. You're completely right when you are trolling them for that.

[palandio]

It seems to me that in Genoa there has been huge discontent with the local administration for some time. From 2007 to 2012 the mayor was Marta Vincenzi, a professor from the PD left. She became unpopular due to her crisis management during a disastrous flood and due to a general feeling of stagnancy. The 2012 center-left primary was between Vincenzi, centrist Pinotti and non-PD left-wing Marco Doria. Doria won the primary and also the general election (first round 48.3%, second round 59.7%), but he turned out to be a weak mayor inable to overcome the administration's gridlock and didn't even seek reelection in 2017. The 2015 Ligurian regional elections became a debacle for the divided center-left, with the Five Stars Movement getting the most votes in the city and the center-right winning the position of governor. The constitutional referendum also foreshadowed bad things to come with traditionally left-wing Genoa voting like the national average.

In some sense this didn't come completely unexpected. Discontent with the center-left administration, Genoa turned to a left-wing outsider in 2012. After the next disappointment, Genoa threw the center-left out in 2017. The more fitting choice for Genoa giving its inclinations would have been a Five Stars Politician, but the disastrous Five Stars administration of Rome and Grillo behaving like a dictator and throwing out the primary winner among other things prevented this.

Having said all this it is not necessarily the same people who voted Doria in 2012, Five Stars in 2015, no at the referendum and center-right in 2017. In fact the center-left candidate (Crivello) won (not by much, though) in the city's working-class West, an area with a high 2015 Five Stars vote and a high no vote. On the other hand the center-right candidate (Bucci) won by the highest margins in the city's bourgeois quarters, the same areas that were the only ones to support Renzi's referendum and where Five Stars support has always been low.

[palandio]

So what is this Rosatellum system?

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-italy-politics-election/italy-calls-confidence-votes-in-senate-on-new-electoral-law-idUSKBN1CT289

Is it just as the article says;

The proposed election law would distribute almost two-thirds of the seats in parliament on a proportional basis, while a third would be decided in a first-past-the-post vote on specific candidates.

Sounds like a version of the Japanese system except with less FPTP MPs?

Parties/lists can join national alliances. Alliances can run at most one candidate in each FPTP seat, but can run more than one PR list. The law explicitly forbids the so-called disjoint vote. That means that your FPTP vote and your PR vote must always go to the same alliance.