Tag Archives: Governments and parties

Senate: 158-156 Prodi

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Corriere della Sera is now reporting that the Italian Senate is breaking 158-156 to the Left, with the lower house going 340-277. The controversial six seats for Italians abroad, introduced by neo-well actually quite-fascist minister (a former member of the Salo Republic’s army) Mirko Tremaglia, seem to have backfired badly on their inventor, with 4 out of 6 going to the Left (German link) and pushing them over the hump.

The Italian right was so keen on those seats that Forza Italia appeared on the overseas ballot as “Italians Abroad with Tremaglia”, which sounds to me at least worryingly like a support group for sufferers of some sort of embarrassing disease. Still, all’s well that ends well, which is probably not what the mafia boss of bosses Bernardo Provenzano is saying right now, having been busted after 40 years on the run. Not that I’m saying there was any connection..

It still might not end well, though, as Berlusconi is babbling about a government of technocrats (German), presumably as a way to stay in office and out of jail a while longer. That could happen either on the basis of a grand coalition (which the Communists are pledged to reject) or alternatively, by somehow dodging the election results.

Market Watch: The MIBTEL has given up some of yesterday’s gains, down 0.67% at 1430 local time..

Italian Elections: Still too close to call.

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UPDATE below the fold.

With respect to the Italian elections, there’s still only one thing certain – it’s going to be a long night, and, possibly, not the last one. There have apparently been, if my rudimentary understanding of Italian news broadcaster Rai News 24 is correct, unjustified delays in data processing. Thus, given the closeness of the race between the center-left and center-right coalitions, Italian expatriats may be the ones who cast the decisive votes for both lower and upper chambers of the Italian Parliament, since a law, introduced in 2001 formed four “overseas constituencies.” They will, accordingly, choose 12 of the 630 MPS in the lower, and six of the the 315 senators in the upper house.

So, instead of news, just some more context. At wwitv.com you can find a whole page full of web streams provided by Italian tv stations. Electionresources.com features a long explanation of the Italian electoral systems, both old and new. As the author, Manuel Álvarez-Rivera explains, the system has been altered in numerous ways for this election –

It is widely anticipated that in the event of an Unione victory under the new PR systems, the resulting center-left majorities in both houses of Parliament would be considerably smaller than under the previous systems, and the leader of the Unione, former Prime Minister (and former President of the European Commission) Romano Prodi has promised to undo the changes if the center-left returns to power in this year’s elections.

Finally, here’s the google-translated election website provided by Italy’s interior ministery, which, hopefully, is, where you can find the eventual election results as soon as they are released officially.
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The Market Speaks…and Jörg Packs

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Well, by 1630 CET today, the Milan stock market had made a very clear judgment on the outcome of the Italian elections – the MIBTEL index being up just under 1 per cent intraday, despite a pasting for Berlusconi’s own Mediaset..down 1.98 per cent at €9.68 a share. Berlusconi’s departure seems welcome indeed.

More exit poll results are spilling out all the time, showing the Left with a working majority in both houses. So far, the only weirdness has been the rather idiosyncratic kerfuffle in the town of Amelia (German link), where a protest led to the removal of crosses from all polling stations on the grounds of constitutionally guaranteed secularism, and predictable moaning from the ex/post/neo/whatever-fascists. A small outbreak of laicisme.

Oh yes, and this…sorry, more German linkage. Seems Jörg Haider, fun-lovin’ pseudofascist scandal monkey and governor of the Austrian province of Kärnten, is going to stand for election in 2009…in Italy, as a candidate for a party advocating Venetian independence. Not just Northern independence as per routine Liga Nord stupidity, but independence for the Most Serene Republic herself.

Strange really. I’ve always thought of Haider as a man out of place, a Mediterranean politician stuck on the wrong side of the Alps with the Germans. His demagoguery, rocambolesque coalition whoring and-to be brutally frank-corruption and barely concealed racism would have fitted beautifully into Silvio Berlusconi’s recent campaign, the municipal authorities of Marbella, or perhaps the intrigues of southern French Gaullism. Carinthia produced far more than its fair share of Nazis, as did many similarly debatable provinces on the edges of the German linguistic sphere, and in a sense his pumped-up nationalism fits the pattern.

Until you remember that he’s not actually from there at all (not far from Linz, actually), and in fact is putting on the overcompensated border nationalism to ingratiate himself with the overcompensated border nationalists. Which fits, too.

But it’s going to be fun to watch.

Changing Colors

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The CDU in Baden-Wuerttemberg is conducting negotiations with the Greens in that state to decide if the two parties should form a coalition government. If they do, it will be the first “black-green” coalition at the state level, and another sign of fluidity in Germany’s post-reunification party politics.

Update: Maybe next time. The CDU and FDP will, according to reports today, continue the coalition that has run the southwest for the last 10 years. Germany changes slowly.
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ETA ‘Calls Permanent Ceasefire’

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Now this is news (even if it not entirely unexpected).

The Basque separatist group ETA on Tuesday announced a permanent cease-fire, apparently bringing a dramatic end to nearly four decades of violence that claimed more than 800 lives, Basque television reported following a communique from the group.

The authenticity of the announcement could not immediately be verified, but ETA often uses local Basque media outlets to issue statements. The group said the cease-fire would start Saturday, and that it would be “permanent.”

Speculation about an end to ETA’s armed campaign has been building for months, despite a recent wave of small-scale bombings against Basque businesses.
Source Reuters

The origin of this report is the Basque Newsd Agency EITB24, and the english version of this site does seem to does seem to be collapsed by all the traffic at the moment. However, if you can access, this thread is the one to watch (and this review of ETA statements, and this history of ETA ceasefires, are obviously highly relevant).

I don’t have time for much in depth commentary and analysis about all this right now, so please consider this post an open thread for any comments or questions, which I will try and answer if I can.

Theatre of Citizenship

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Everyone’s been terribly worried about France. First of all, last autumn’s carburning outbreak saw a lot of people who really ought to know better gathering to hail the end of days and the Islamofascist conquest of Eurabia, or something. Now, the students are out on the streets to protest the government’s new labour laws, and perhaps the trade unions will be coming too. And then there was the supposedly anti-semitic stabbing of a few weeks ago.

That stabbing, one will remember, brought thousands onto the streets for a heavily earnest, government supported demonstration against antisemitism, terrorism and a few other isms. I’m usually very sceptical about demos like that, and the Spanish tradition of demonstrating against terrorists-they aren’t listening, after all, and it is always worryingly close to demonstrating in favour of the government. There’s a strong case that one shouldn’t take part in a modern version of the demos by (supposedly) torpedoed merchant seamen that Winston Churchill put on in the first world war to shame strikers.

But is there more use to it than I think? (More, and more sense, below the fold..)
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Italian Elections 2006 IIIa

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Well we’re having a fairly lively discussion on the original post about the future of Italian democracy, so I thought it might be useful, as a sort of side plate, to link to this analysis from Morgan Stanley’s Vincenzo Guzzo. He highlights the recent changes in Italian election law, and the impact they may have on the final outcome of this year’s poll. In particular he suggests that:

“these new rules have encouraged the main parties on both fronts to seek alliances with a large number of miniscule formations, thus exacerbating the risk of political fragmentation within each of the two coalitions and possibly diluting the content of the two platforms“.

Well rather than diluting, the word hijacking comes more to mind, expecially if I think about the influence Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya has been able to have on the implementation of the Zapatero programme here in Spain. I don’t know if anyone indside Italy has any views on how the new balance could affect political agendas?

Update: Hans Suter has just mailed me making this point (which is also partly touched on by Guzzo):

It’s usually forgotten that there aren’t only political elections, a month later there will be administrative elections (mayors etc). There will at the same moment the election for a new head of state, and shortly after there will be a referendum about the changes the center right government has made to the constitution. For rest:the coffers are empty and the mess immense. Wish us good luck.

Italian Elections 2006 III

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Well Romano Prodi and Silvio Berlusconi finally got to meet up in front of the TV cameras last night, even if they didn’t exactly enter into face to face combat. The poll consensus seems to be that Prodi won it on points.

The debate seems to have centred around economic themes, and Euractiv has a summary of it here. Surprisingly, or unsurprisingly, Finance Minister Giulio Tremonti has been trying to put a brave face on things, by claiming that Italy is now “on the right tracks” and that the situation of Italy’s “public finances is good”. Mario Draghi, the new governor over at the Italian central bank does not seem especially convinced, since he was claiming only last week that the Italian economy had run aground.

Again unsurprisingly a poll held shortly before the debate showed that a large number of Italians are still undecided about how they will cast their vote, even if there is some evidence that the Prodi coalition may be hanging on to their lead.

Roberto over at Wind Rose Hotel has the third of his election posts now up. He draws our attention to the latest contributor to the ‘great debate’, semiologist and erstwhile novelist Umberto Eco (link in Italian). Eco has indicated he might consider leaving Italy were Berlusconi to be re-elected. Democracy, according to Eco, is in danger in Italy. Angelo Panebianco, writing in Corriere della Sera (which has remember endorsed the Prodi coalition), takes issue with Eco and asks: why so much theatrical drama?:

For two reasons, I think. The first is that such dramatisation is exactly what attracts the kind of ‘intellectual’ audience which has chosen Umberto Eco, and especially Umberto Eco, as its very own champion and reference point. The hate for Berlusconi among this section of the public is palpable and evident, we have surely all of us found this in recent years in scores of private conversations and in the fascinating phenomenon of collective psychology. …..

The second reason for the dramatisation, I think, is to do with a problem which is typical of our (Italian) culture. It is an ancient legacy here, for many, to mistake democracy, which is a method of resolving conflicts by counting heads instead of breaking heads them……..(to mistake this process) forthe realisation of their own ideals. To mistake the victory or defeat of their political views for the victory and defeat of democracy: this is a kind of childhood illness of democracy.

Well it seems that Italy is a society which is rapidly ageing but where ‘childhood illnesses’ abound. Reading the piece by Panebianco I could not help but think, not of Umberto Eco, but of Nanni Moretti, whose films I thoroughly enjoy, but whose perceptions of contemporary Italian society have always struck me as being ‘warped’ to say the least. Democracy is not in danger in Italy in this election, it is not even in doubt. What is in danger, and about this there should be no doubt, is the Italian pension system and the mid-term economic well-being of Italian society. Far from the Italian pension system having been reformed and fine-tuned to the extent which Tremonti alleges, the necessary adjustment has only recently started on the road, and this small step was taken only after the last minute tussle and haggling (in part with represantatives of Berlusconi’s insurance industry interests) which was needed to salvage at least one piece of reforming legislation from 5 years of a decidedly ‘reform unfriendly’ government. What Italy needs at this point in time is a government which is serious about introducing the Lisbon agenda in Italy. This would not be a Berlusconi-lead government. Will it be a Prodi-lead one? This is what remains to be seen. If it turns out that neitherof the alternatives are up to the task, then Eco may well, in a certain sense be right: Italy will then have a crisis of democracy, but not, I think, the one he has in mind.

Breaking Up The Power Giants?

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Battle may be about to be joined. EU competition commissioner Neelie Kroes is back in the news. She made a speech yesterday, and in that speech she suggested that the golden days of the EUs unreformed energy giants may be numbered, as the European Commission is considering launching an onslaught on monopolistic energy utilities and the politicians who protect them (and here). According to The Economist Angela Merkel has recently gone for a policy of “underpromise and overdeliver”, so I do hope she has taken a leaf out of Merkel’s book, and that this won’t be yet another example of ‘overpromise and underdeliver’. The stakes, as I was suggesting yesterday, are really quite high.

Kroes principle objective seems to be those companies that control both the supply and distribution of energy, and in so doing effectively block their rivals from entering the market. But in taking on these companies she will also need to take on the political networks that support them. As Euractiv (which incidentally has a useful dossier on the energy topic) puts it “The EU considers common energy policy amid national sovereignty concerns”. My question is, just who is it who has so much vested interest in this national sovereignty idea? Can it be simply a coincidence that Kroes hails from the Netherlands, one of the smaller EU member states? Oh well, one more time onwards and upwards to the coalition of the willing.

Italian Elections 2006 Part II

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Well the election campaign in Italy trundles on, and issues are starting to emerge. One of the more curious details to have come out in recent days refers to the size and shape of the voting card. It is to be some 65 centimetres long with canditates arranged horizontally rather than vertically across the strip (if this seems like a long ticket, some US cards are up to a metre long apparently, although just why AGI online choses the US for its comparison is beyond me).

Beyond the ticket itself, Italy’s leading independent newspaper Corriere della Sera has just published an editorial coming down (for the first time I think) on the side of the centre left coalition lead by Romano Prodi (declaration of interest: CdS is my preferred reading among Italian newspapers). The reasoning for this decision seems to run something along the lines that the Berlusconi government has taken policy decisions more in the light of the need to resolve internal coalition differences than in the light of the real needs and interests of the country: to which ‘amen’.
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