Italian Elections and Politics 2022 - Our Time to Schlein

[DL]

So Renzi would have preferred a snap election and a salvini majority government? That could have been the last free election in Italy and be the equivalent of the March on Rome in 1923

[Filuwaúrdjan]

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.

[Oryxslayer]

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.

Renzi defects and starts his own party, taking about 20 deputies and 10 Senators with him. He will continue support Conte in the short term he says. Long term the parliamentary Math becomes a bit more tight for Conte. Polls have Renzis Party at some 5%.

What is supposed to be the ideology of this new party?

Their ideology is the middle finger, and that's all that matters in chaotic Italian politics.

[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.

[SPQR]

Italia Viva currently polls between 3% and 6%.
The deputies which switched from PD to IV are just loyalists, all of the former Renzi supporters which supported Martina (the more moderate candidate) are remaining.

As mentioned above, Renzi just wanted his own party, surrounded by yes-men ready to obey. Factionalism was a big deal in PD, sure, but Renzi vowed to break it while instead all he managed to do was to bring his own bunch of loyalists in power, without any structural change.
Hard to see how his new party is going to work in a different way.

He's going to be aiming for the "moderates", much like Calenda, who broke away from PD one month ago because of the gov't with M5S. But as it is, he's getting support from former PD supporters, while those in FI (both the deputies and voters) are staying clear.

[palandio]

A new poll by Scenari Politici - Winpoll commissioned by Il Sole 24 Ore puts Italia Viva at the relatively high mark of 6.4%. Interesting are the voter flows:
1.8% from More Europe
1.6% from the PD
1.5% from Forza Italia
0.4% from non-voters
0.3% from Brothers of Italy
0.3% from Five Stars
0.3% from the Lega
0.2% from others.

I'm always wary of the classical Italian polls that pretend accuracy up to the first digit behind the dot, only to fail miserably on election day, but interesting, if true.

[Estrella]

Is there a possibility of a Renzi-Bonino-centrist microparties coalition, some kind of Patto Segni - boogaloo elettrico? Perhaps even Berlusconi would join, if it began to look that Lega+FdI would have a majority by themselves in the next election.

[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.

[rob in cal]

  If the new government does make a big change in immigration or citizenship laws is that something that could trigger a referendum against it, like Salvini promised?  Also, I wonder if there is a big chunk of five star, lead by Di Maio?, that is fairly right wing when it comes to these issues?

[Oryxslayer]

  If the new government does make a big change in immigration or citizenship laws is that something that could trigger a referendum against it, like Salvini promised?  Also, I wonder if there is a big chunk of five star, lead by Di Maio?, that is fairly right wing when it comes to these issues?

There was a big chunk of M5S's voter base who supported harsh immigration policies, but those are the voters who now give Salvini access to a easy majority of elections occur. There is still a good chunk of the parliamentarians who are of that right wing, and their actions are those of a party trying to claw back voters - even as it may fracture the fragile alliance (and polls show Salvini is still way out ahead).

[Babeuf]

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

[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.

[El Betico]

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?

[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.

[El Betico]

Things to watch about Umbria elections:

1) In the past, recent past, Umbria was totally a left-wing stronghold...since 1970, the year of the first Italian regional election, only The Left( from Italian Communist Party to PD) has ruled Umbria

2) Now you have a Forza Italia mayor of Perugia( elected in 2014 in the runoff and re-elected in May in the first round with over 60% of the votes...I guess he's quite popular as a mayor), and a member of the League as mayor of Terni, which is a city quite similar to a Rust Belt town economically and culturally speaking...having a right-wing mayor of Terni is like having a right-wing mayor of Buffalo, from a certain point of a view, but not a traditional conservative one in this case

3) After 2018 general elections, Umbria is represented in Rome only by right-wing politicians, considering only the first-past-the-post-constituencies...their candidate for regional president, Donatella Tesei, is the sitting senator from Terni FPTP constituency

4) For the first time ever, M5S and PD are running together behind the same candidate for president

5) Winner of 2015( and 2010) regional election, PD's Catiuscia Marini, was forced to resign because of a corruption scandal that hit her party in the Healthcare sector

6) Centre-right is not united...their candidate in the 2015 election, moderate Claudio Ricci, is running alone with a so-called civic coalition, opposed to Tesei, who is backed by Ricci former party Forza Italia

Umbria may be a small region, but there is so much at stake on its Sunday elections...who will be hit by final results? The center-left plus M5S coalition, with M5S probably running alone in future elections in case of a bad result, or a centre-right now even formally led by Salvini with the moderates sidelined?

( Yes, I'm a Spaniard...but I'm paying a big attention to the Italian developments because a successful Left + M5S government I think it could in some ways influence developments in my home country...M5S, in many ways, is a milder, on left side, version of Podemos).

[El Betico]

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.

[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.

[El Betico]

Yes, you're totally right, I guess my memory had "a little" faltered...still, I think from this point of view Umbria is a huge exception in Italian "panorama", nearly 20 years without having a male regional president who isn't merely an acting one...being a motor sports follower, I also happen to know that in the late Marco Simoncelli home town of Coriano( Emilia Romagna) they hadn't had a male for mayor since 1993...by the way, it was only a simple and abstract observation, I don't think it will be in any case an issue, and -based on polls I have seen- Italy even doesn't have a real gender gap when it comes to vote.

[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).

[jaichind]

League Candidate at 56.5% to 60.5% in Umbria Vote: Exit Polls

[Umengus]

League Candidate at 56.5% to 60.5% in Umbria Vote: Exit Polls

wow

[jaichind]

How come Italia Viva did not put up a candidate in Umbria?