ITALY’S POLITICAL SITUATION. HUBRIS AND NEMESIS IN SLOW MOTION

This Article was published by OPEN DEMOCRACY  on April 26, 2013

The Media, both Italian and International, as well as the financial markets, appear to have responded with understandable but scarcely justified  optimism, almost enthusiasm, at the outcome of the  deepest crisis  encountered in the  short history of the Italian Republic (founded  in 1946)..

It has to be said that, by Italian standards, the presidential elections, which took place between the 18^th and the 20^th of April, were not particularly  disorderly: or drawn out:  for example,  one of the most popular of the 11 presidents who have led  post-war Italy – Sandro Pertini – was elected on the  sixteenth ballot, whereas the  re-election of the incumbent Giorgio Napolitano was concluded in six. The  outcome of this electoral process, however, enhances the feeling of decay in the country’s political and social structure, and is bound to have negative reverberations.

Moving at a breakneck pace, the  newly elected  President has  given  the task of forming a “grand coalition” government to Enrico Letta, of the majority  Democratic Party. Should Letta succeed, he would be the youngest Prime Minister in the world, serving under the oldest  Head of State – Napolitano, born in 1925, barely noses out Queen Elisabeth,  1926.

Starting on Thursday, April 18, a body of about 1000 “great electors”,  formed by a joint session of Parliament with the addition of regional representatives began the  electoral process, which, though relatively brief,  has brought about a deep and probably long-lasting crisis in the Italian democratic system.

In the past, the  basic  superficiality of the Italian approach to  political problems had discouraged foreign observers from using over dramatic terms in describing them and  from hinting at the possibility of a tragic outcome: Somehow, at the last moment, the Goddess Nemesis, in her Italian version, had always spared  her intended victim, allowing life to continue without missing a beat.

But the  unbelievable hubristic attitude adopted by the main Political Parties in Italy, as shown on the occasion of the complex procedure devised  for the election of the President of the Republic could well indicate a much more dramatic outcome than what normally emerges from political sparring in Italy.

In spite of the existence of a very unfair  electoral law, designed to muzzle opinion rather than to encourage it, the remarkable, almost incredible, electoral victory of comedian Beppe Grillo’s “Five Stars Movement”,   appeared to give a clear indication  that  Italians had voted for a radical change. Grillo’s “Movimento” emerged as the single largest party in Italy, with almost 25% of the popular vote  attributed to an electorate composed of people of various ages, of different political  provenance and of all professions. It was evident that this very variegated electorate had really had enough of the political posturing which had become particularly  unproductive and sterile during the past two decades and had voted as they did in the hope of  a change.

At first, the  leading coalition, the Centre-Left led by the Democratic Party, which holds an absolute majority in the lower house but not in the Senate,  really seemed to  have  accepted the message and began, albeit sluggishly and with visible reluctance, to  undertake token gestures in the right direction (e.g. pay cuts for Parliamentarians, reduction of  political expenditures, attempted dialogue “outside the box” with Grillo).

The imminent election of the new Head of State, appeared, however, to have reversed these timid  approaches to  innovation, and the most negative aspects of the old secret  dealings  re-emerged with a vengeance. Only Grillo’s Movement, later followed by a minor left wing  party, SEL, acted with transparency and  a  few  very interesting candidates had been nominated through  an online method of selection. There seemed little chance, however, that the voice of Grillo’s electorate would be heard and the two “old” parties, with the addition of  outgoing Prime Minister Mario Monti’s Centrist party evidently coalesced on  the selection of personalities who, by now, are politically  burned out and  by and large mistrusted by the population.

The astounding re-election of an 87 year old veteran politician by a Parliament ostensibly bent on “innovation”, may well buy some time, but is difficult to imagine that a viable, lasting and, above all, efficient Government will be formed in these tense circumstances. Before the end of the year, in all probability,  elections will have to be called and the traditional parties  may well suffer another humiliating defeat, as they did last February, but this time, perhaps, with even more damaging long-term  results.

The choice of Napolitano – the first incumbent  Italian president to be re-elected to a second term - does not, at this stage,  have as much relevance as the method of selection and the consequences of the main parties’ conspiratorial behaviour. The result, though  much acclaimed by the mainstream media,  is far from popular and is being seen  as a product of all too familiar unsavoury back-room deals and will not be respected by the majority of the people. In the current fragile state of Italian political life, this  exercise in political wheeling-dealing while the country is visibly in a state of collapse will be bound to leave   traces and to create a bitter legacy for the future.

The concept of a “grand coalition”,  forcing  a coexistence between two rival parties, can work in some Social  structures – such as Germany – but is unlikely to last long in Italy, especially in the climate of tension and reciprocal  distrust between the two principal rivals (the Democratic Party and Mr. Berlusconi’s “People of Liberty”) which has poisoned the political atmosphere for years and has brought about a virtual paralysis in Government activity. The situation, difficult enough, is further complicated by the sometimes erratic behaviour of Beppe Grillo’s “Five Stars Movement”, which, having emerged as the strongest single party from last February’s election, is in a position to wield considerable weight..

It is what could be called a no-win situation with the principal loser, of course, being Italy itself.