AND THE WINNER IS .... REFLECTIONS ON THE ITALIAN ELECTORAL RESULTS

This Aricle was published by "Open Democracy" on February 28, 2013

Italians woke up on the morning of Tuesday, February 26^th with the realisation that not one of the numerous opinion polls set to predict the outcome of the  elections held between Sunday and Monday  had been correct, and that the country was probably facing a period of turbulence without parallel in its post-war history

In 1948 all the opinion  polls published in the United States had assured that  President Truman could not possibly win the  presidential elections. Truman responded  by stating that the opinion polls were “eyewash” and proceeded to win, rather comfortably. In his  Genoese dialect,  Mr. Beppe Grillo, the  undisputed winner of these elections, is probably echoing the same thought.

There are many amazing results from this electoral exercise, amazing even in a land of paradoxes such as Italy, the principal one being the fact that  the ostensible  “winner” (i.e. the coalition that  has the  largest number of  elected officials in Parliament, the “Democratic Party” and its allies) is, in reality, one of the principal losers, having gained the  smallest percentage of the total vote in its history, and finding itself in a position which  will make it well nigh impossible to govern according to its electoral commitments.

These elections have, in fact, produced only one undisputable winner,  the totally unpredictable maverick “Five Stars Movement” created and headed by former  comedian Beppe Grillo. This extremely populist movement, which has refused  all financial aid and has  never appeared on  the innumerable Television programmes much favoured by its rivals,  ended up  with around 25% of the popular vote, making it the  largest single Party represented in Parliament.

Another surprise “winner” is certainly the much reviled  Silvio Berlusconi, who also ran on an incredibly  naïve  populist  campaign, and who, after having been virtually written off both by Italian and foreign observers, has almost pulled one of his   miraculous comebacks,  with  his coalition losing out to the Centre Left by only a handful of votes. Berlusconi also, however, can be termed a “loser” if  his  results are compared to those obtained previously

The biggest loser, however, is certainly outgoing Prime Minister Mario Monti, who entered the political fray against the advice of many, including  an astute  veteran political figure such as the President of the Republic, Giorgio Napolitano, a former Communist octogenarian who  has been active in Italian politics for all of his adult existence. It is said that he advised Monti to play  the role of Cincinnatus, and to let the active political parties and coalitions tear one another apart in what promised to be a very intense battle, with the possibility of emerging, once again, as a possible solution to the country’s instability.  Monti was convinced, instead,  that  his “Centrist” movement would give him a sufficient number of  votes to  guarantee him  a fundamental  role  in the post-electoral political spectrum, whereas, in reality,  the coalition just barely scraped through to collect the minimum number of votes needed to get into  Parliament.

Two questions arise: firstly we need to ask ourselves the reasons behind such an unpredictable outcome, and secondly, whether there is any hope to form a reasonably stable Government in the next weeks or months. The situation is complicated by the fact that president Napolitano, finding himself in the last  six months of his mandate,  does not have the Constitutional power to dissolve Parliament, and it would therefore be difficult to  return to a new electoral process before the nomination of the next President at the hands of a joint session of Parliament, augmented by  other institutional  figures.

 These  fundamental queries can be approached only after an analysis of the winning movement’s power of attraction to people of various age groups and former political allegiance. In European politics the  term “populist” can be misleading, and  brings to mind some extreme right-wing movements, bordering on the neo-fascist, which exist  elsewhere. Grillo refuses  to be cast in a “right wing” or “left wing” role, and, in fact, his basic ideas are slightly more to the left of Centre, without, however, allowing the conservative parties to raise the spectre of Communism. Even his anti-European stance is not really all that absolute, and is rather a criticism of  the heavy handed nature of EU interference than a desire to quit the Euro-zone or the Union itself. His common sense approach seems to attract his voters: everyone, for example,  has been claiming that   elected politicians are overpaid, but no attempt has been made to remedy the situation. Grillo’s elected officials have voluntarily docked their own pay, and this has scored many points in his favour.

The feeling is that the electorate wanted to punish the two most powerful political coalitions – Berlusconi’s to the right and Bersani’s to the left – for their inactivity during  the thirteen months of Monti’s “Technical Government”, a period which could have been dedicated to  the carving out of essential systemic reforms and was instead spent  in totally  vacuous political  posturing and  sparring.

The way the  electoral campaign was conducted is also indicative of the vast difference in approach between Grillo and his adversaries. While the traditional parties campaigned almost exclusively on Television, as guests  in the many available “talk-shows”, Grillo  undertook what he called a “tsunami tour” of the entire country, with no barriers  between himself and the people, and was seen addressing ever larger crowds which turned out in all weather conditions and kept showing undiminished enthusiasm.

The present situation appears almost hopeless: the writer of these notes has been following Italian politics since 1948, and does not recall a state of comparable confusion.

The  Left has a comfortable majority in the Lower House of Parliament, but the Senate is totally deadlocked. Italy is very dissimilar to Germany, and the idea of a “Grand Coalition” for the sake of stability and progress would be unlikely to  function, since it would have to bring together the two factions which have been at loggerheads for the past  two decades..

The Democratic Party could court Grillo and ask  his movement to join forces, but Grillo is unlikely to fall for  the traditional Siren Song (a few  ministerial positions in the future Government) at the risk of being  trapped in the quagmire of Italian politics and losing his popular momentum.  If he does collaborate, it will be at a price, and this price  may not appear acceptable to all the components of the  majority coalition, which could end by splitting up.

The justified fear is that, as has happened in the past, diverse groups will glue together a clumsy, unworkable governing coalition which will stagger through the coming months, unable to complete the reforms initiated by the Monti administration. The result could well end up in disaster.

The question remains open, and only the next few days will give an indication of what the outcome could turn out to be.

Carlo Ungaro