Italian Elections and Politics 2018: Yellow Tide

[Filuwaúrdjan]

They tried that in Israel. It did not work.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Except that much of all of that has actually been caused by mucking around with electoral systems to create majorities...

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Details, schmetails. My point is that constantly dicking around with the electoral system for blatant political ends has certainly contributed its share to the current fiasco...

[Filuwaúrdjan]

^^^

Could someone explain *exactly* how the new law works?

[Filuwaúrdjan]

The Italian Left is going to get horribly, horribly, horribly crushed at some point in the comparatively near future. This stuff is delusional and stupid.

To win elections you have to win people over. Sometimes a lot of people. You don't change the fycking rules because you suck at that.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

That's a pretty ridiculous misinterpretation of my point. The issue is the attitude. That of a political class that wishes to reign rather than rule: voters hate that.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

I'm sorry if this comes across as at all rude, but why the fyck do you think so many Italians voted for a joke party last time round?

[Filuwaúrdjan]

You make a valid point, but how the hell do they win people over?

I would suggest that they start by implementing policies that improve the lives of ordinary people.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Who mentioned morality? What does morality have to do with anything?

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Xahar is correct.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

For the time being at least things look weirdly like how they were 'supposed' to be after Mani pulite, before Forza Italia turned up.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

British politicians have historically had little difficulty dealing with hung parliaments, yes. The new Italian electoral law is awful, but (in fairness) it isn't really any worse than the joke of a system that's currently in place.* I haven't been following this as closely as I should, but is the Senate getting the heave-ho or not?

_{*I will note here my amusement that constitutional do-gooders in Italy take the exact opposite line on electoral systems to those in the UK. It's almost as if the root cause of political problems is rarely actually the voting system...}

[Filuwaúrdjan]

I would like to know what you mean with your footnote, I genuinely have no idea who the "constitutional do-gooders" are and what stance they're supposed to take.

There's a tendency amongst a certain type of constitutionally minded reformist type in Italy to believe that majoritarian electoral systems are the best electoral systems. This is the exact opposite of the line usually taken by the same sort of people here.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

There's no point having a majority bonus that kicks in at 50% because at 50% you already have a majority...

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Examples that happen to be totally irrelevant given the context

[Filuwaúrdjan]

A few names have been floated around, such as Giuliano Amato (useless establishment stooge who basically held every imaginable political position except for that one and who's been pretty friendly to Berlusconi in the past)...

Craxi as well!

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Looks like nobody will actually be voting for Mattarella on the first ballot. The showdown will only come on the 4th, when a simple majority is sufficient. Theoretically, Mattarella already has the unanimous support of the left coalition (which has nearly 50% of the seats) and could get additional support from former M5Sers and centrists.

LOL that old trick.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Obligatory

[Filuwaúrdjan]

If you don't love Italy there's something fundamentally wrong with you.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

It's now clear that Renzi supremely sneaky bastard, very much in the style of the political tradition that he comes from. Which - given that he is evidently good at that kind of thing - may well be exactly what the Left needs at the moment.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

To answer that adequately would entail a detailed history of the entire First Republic...

But as a brief summary; the Cold War driven polarisation of Italian politics had rendered the PSI (which was memorably and accurately described by a British diplomat as a 'very silly party' in the mid 1940s) functionally irrelevant. The PCI had stolen its old working class base in the North, it had also lost support to the breakaway PSDI¹ and the PSI's unrepentant (at least for a while) Marxism meant that it could not seriously appeal for other voters. Mutual ideological mellowing allowed for PSI participation in DC governments from 1963 onwards, but this did not solve the party's electoral problems (in part because the PCI's long (unwitting) march away from Communism was well underway by this point). The party also suffered from crippling factionalism. Craxi - a nasty careerist little turd from the day he was born - took advantage of this to gain control of the party in the mid 1970s and was able to refashion the PSI in his own image. The PSI cultivated close links with business in general and business in Milan² in particular (Silvio Berlusconi is a case in point: Craxi become his political protector and, ultimately, his mentor) and with the centre parties (DC, PSDI, PRI, PLI), and aggressively sought out a new electorate; state functionaries and white collar private sector workers. It also began to develop patronage machines in order to break into the South. The PSI's past rhetoric and baggage was not entirely abandoned though; it kept it distinct (in the eyes of its electorate if not reality) from the rest of the political centre, and this had obviousl electoral benefits. As an electoral strategy Craxi's transformation of the PSI was not particularly successful (under his leadership it never polled higher than 14% nationally), but as a political strategy it was brilliant. The PSI drew closer to the centres of power (and, critically, public money), Craxi enjoyed a lengthy (for Italy) stint as Prime Minister, and all looked very rosy indeed. And then some third rate party hack called Mario Chiesa got caught taking a bribe...

<sub>1. Who eventually turned into an even bigger joke than the PSI...
2. Where the PSI had been part of city government (and had usually led it) since 1961.</sub>

[Filuwaúrdjan]

The issue is that the 'majority' was not in charge during the last years of the party's life.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

I need to do more of these some time, but results for 1963:



...and 1976:



No further need to explain the MSI, probably...

The electorates for the two old liberal parties evolved considerably during the course of the First Republic (a lot of legacy votes, for want of a better way of putting it, in rural areas in the early years), but by the mid 1960s - and then until the end of the First Republic - they were both mostly backed by non religious upper middle class (to actively rich) people. The PLI in particular was extremely close to certain business interests. The Radicals were mostly backed by their children.
Though both the PRI and PLI also retained patronage machines in a couple of random areas right up until the end; as you can see from the maps.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

The Senate is a terrible, terrible institution so this is good news.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

I don't think Naples can really be categorised; it does its own weird thing in its own weird way. But the answer in Italy is always History.