Rome, June 2, 2015

Italian elections: And the Winner is …….

As many had foreseen, the results of last Sunday’s regional elections in Italy appear to indicate a period of renewed, accentuated and totally irrational turmoil, perhaps even terminating with yet another Government crisis and the call for early elections.

Thanks to extremely complex electoral laws and to the ease with which alliances and coalitions are created and broken, as is usual in Italy all sides claim victory, and it is not easy to perceive reality through the  smokescreen of triumphant statements.

At times, on the surface, the victory claims appear plausible: the ruling Democratic Party, led by the Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, has, after all, succeeded in securing  five out of the seven contested regions, Silvio Berlusconi, generally considered a spent force in Italian politics, can boast of the fact that his party’s candidate won the elections in Liguria, traditionally a stronghold of the Left, while Grillo’s “Five Stars” movement has retained its position as Italy’s second largest political force and the Northern League, led by the wily, capable, Matteo Salvini has confirmed its surging  presence and  become the undisputed leader of the country’s right-wing electorate.

All but one of these claims, however, fail to stand up to a more in-depth analysis, and it is particularly interesting to  note how badly Renzi’s Democratic Party has fared in spite of its apparent success.

The party’s loss in the Veneto region, traditionally a secure stronghold of the Northern League, was expected, but the Democratic Party, in spite of Renzi’s outspoken support for it’s candidate, suffered an unprecedented debacle, gathering  the lowest percentage ever obtained by a left-wing party (including the Communists) in the history of the Republic.

The most humiliating and meaningful defeat, however, came in Liguria, traditionally a left-wing region, on which Renzi himself expended  much energy in the course of the electoral campaign. The  Renzi supporters were quick to  lay the blame for the disaster on the left wing of the Party, which ran a candidate of its own, obtaining a respectable percentage even though it was lower than what they had expected. The rift in the Democratic party, however, is not confined to Genova and Liguria, and is certainly  a phenomenon to which Renzi – especially now in an apparently weakened position – should pay the greatest attention, before it spreads to national level. In Liguria it was, in fact,  the arrogant attitude of the  mainstream party which was to blame, with the insistent support of an unpopular candidate whose name was produced through primaries the legitimacy of which were hotly contested. To add insult to injury, the Democratic fiasco gave Berlusconi’s struggling “Forza Italia” its only winning candidate in the contest, but  more about this subject later.

But  also in the “winning” regions, the Democratic Party faced  - and  will continue to face – severe obstacles, especially in Campania, where official support was given to the winning candidate in spite of his having been placed on a “black list” by Parliament’s own anti-Mafia commission, presided, among other things, by one of the leading political figures in the Party itself (Ms. Rosi Bindi). According to current Italian legislation, the winner, because of being a convicted criminal, will not be allowed to take up his position as Governor, and this will certainly add to Mr. Renzi’s embarrassment.

Also in the remaining Southern region, Puglia, the winner, locally popular, was not openly supported by Renzi and claims that, after his victory he did not receive the expected  congratulatory telegram or telephone call from the Prime Minister.

The remaining three regions  were widely expected to  remain firmly in Democratic hands, and so scarcely constitute a triumph for the party. It  has to be added that the party has experienced a dramatic drop in overall support, losing about ten percentage points and about two million voters from the unprecedented 41% triumph of last year’s European elections. This is  a severe blow to Renzi’s stated ambition of forming a “National Party”, which would include rival factions and remain a dominant  fixture in Italian politics.

As the venerable Italian proverb states: “Though Athens weeps, Sparta is not laughing”, and another of the self-proclaimed “winners”, Silvio Berlusconi’s one dominating Forza Italia, emerges severely, perhaps irremediably damaged, and this electoral experience could really signal the end of Berlusconi’s career as an active and influential political figure. The Berlusconi owned Media, of course, point out the  party’s victory in the hitherto hostile region of Liguria where one of a disappearing breed of loyal party faithful was elected Governor. This is certainly true, but while the victorious candidate bears, as it were, the “Forza Italia” label, his election is mainly due to the support of the Northern League and of other minor right-wing parties. Elsewhere, and on a national level, the party has experienced the most disastrous results in its history.

As for the “Five Stars” movement, it has to be said that its claims of “victory” are partly justified, first of all because it remains the country’ second political party, and also because it has recuperated some of the great numeric losses incurred after the 2013 elections.

The results, however,  were not as successful as some of the supporters had predicted, and there are limited reasons to celebrate.

It is worth noting that, in the course of this campaign, the Movement went through a drastic change in style, eschewing the rough, sometimes obscene language used in the past and  appearing on some of the main Television political talk shows, the men uncharacteristically dressed in dark suits and neckties, to the point of being compared to  Jehovah's Witnesses. The appearances of its flamboyant founder and leader, former comedian Beppe Grillo were cut to an absolute minimum, and this caused speculation as to whether the Movement was experiencing a leadership crisis.

Only one of the exuberant  victory claims appears fully justified, for the Northern League has definitely taken over the leadership of Italy’s political Right, and will certainly be a force to be reckoned with in the future. This causes some concern because of the League’s strident  xenophobic and anti-European stances, and there is a real danger that their success will condition the Government’s more traditional pro-European and more tolerant immigration policies, especially since also the powerful Five Stars Movement – though certainly not  a political ally of the League – is basically critical of the European Union and resistant to  the massive inflow of migrants through the Mediterranean.

A pessimist view of the recent election could point out another winner: the abstention rate which  has now reached unprecedented levels with voter turnout seldom above 50%, and this in country which, until recently boasted of voter turnouts much closer to 80%.

It is too early to assess to what extent these results will condition the ruling party’s and, of course, the Prime Minister’s  prestige and decision  making power, but it appears undeniable that great changes should be expected, which could eventually influence Italy’s role within the EU leadership.

Carlo Ungaro

Rome, May 26, 2015

Regional Elections in Italy: Could Renzi’s honeymoon be over?

On Sunday, May 31, regional elections will be held in seven very sensitive regions in Italy, and it is thought that the results of these elections  will, on the one hand, partly clarify the political situation, at present particularly confused and chaotic even by Italian standards, and, perhaps, give some indications on possible future trends.

In Italy opinion polls cannot be made public for a number of weeks prior to elections, and, because of this, forecasting is made much more complex and  very much based on intuition and guesswork.  The more influential and wealthier political parties, however,  commission polls of their own, and the changing attitudes of the party leaders  can give an idea of the directions being taken by public opinion.

Still strongly influenced by the unprecedented 40% victory in last year’s European elections,  leaders of the ruling Democratic Party, equating the upcoming contest to a football game (not unusual in Italy), were forecasting a crushing 7-0 victory. At later stages, wiser counsels prevailed and the probable score was given as 6-1 (The Veneto region appears to be safely in the hands of the “Northern League”), or, in a “worst case scenario”, 5-2. In the past few days this  amusing and perhaps irresponsible outflow of optimistic numbers has ceased and Prime Minister Renzi himself has stated that even a score of 4-3 would be a victory, and what is essential in these cases is to win. In even more recent statements both Renzi and some of his Cabinet Ministers have  been quoted as saying that the outcome of local elections would not, in any case, influence the Government’s  path toward ambitious, albeit  controversial reforms.

The early expressions of confidence in the result were partly due to the virtual collapse of the once powerful Centre Right forces, with Silvio Berlusconi's “Forza Italia” party  in a state of apparently irreversible disintegration, with no credible alternative in sight. This evaluation, however, did not take into account the extraordinary surge in popularity of the “Northern  League”, once  almost exclusively regional but now active on a national basis, guided by the latest rising star in Italian politics, Matteo Salvini. Some irony has been expressed on the circumstance that Matteo Renzi’s most dangerous rival is also called Matteo and that also he, like the Prime Minister, owes his initial  appearance as a public figure to the successful  participation in a televised quiz show.

Salvini’s political stance is difficult to  define, but it can best be described as a continuation of his Party’s traditional xenophobic and – above all – anti European positions, in the capable hands of a youthful, well-spoken and very persuasive figure who uses his “boy next door” appearance to mask extremely virulent political positions. He has been assaulting the media and appears almost daily on one or the other of Italy’s innumerable TV Talk shows in which he invariably outshines his opponents in an admirable display of political savoir-faire.

Ever present in the background, stubbornly ignored by the more traditional parties, lies also the basically  Euro sceptic “Five Stars Movement”, headed by former comedian Beppe Grillo, which, until the most recent  opinion polls, held on to a respectable 20% of electoral support, but which, according to spreading rumours, has recently seen an increase of its popularity precisely in those regions (such as Campania and Liguria) in which the Democratic Party is seen to be facing an uphill struggle.

The picture has been further complicated by the recent electoral victories of the Podemos movement in Spain and of  the right wing candidate, Andrzej Duda, in the Polish  presidential elections. Both of these, radically different though they may be, share a fundamental anti-European stance in tune with the positions of the Italian Democratic Party’s main opponents, who have not hesitated to express enthusiastic support  for the  victorious  sides in Spain and Poland, thus touching upon  issues that ought to be far removed from those generally associated with local, administrative elections.

It has to be noted that, in Italy, local elections are based on a run-off principle, and the  person elected  as “President” has to obtain at least 50% of the votes cast. This is unlikely to happen in the first round of any of the seven contests, and even though the Democratic Party may come out  ahead in as many as five of them, the danger is that the  voters adhering to the other two parties will converge on the second placed candidate, in the name of anti-European and anti-immigration principles, thus depriving the Democratic Party candidate of victory at the second round.

All this leads to the supposition that the race will be a close one, and that the Governing party may actually come out of the contest in a weaker position than the one held  presently, depriving  Prime Minister Renzi’s hold onto the scattering of “independent” parliamentarians and, what is more important, on the growing opposition within his own Party.

In Italy it is extremely rare for a defeated political leader to resign, and so a Government crisis, though not impossible, is extremely unlikely, but it is certain that things will not be the same in Italy after May 31, and that Prime Minister Renzi will be facing a much more difficult struggle. It is not to be excluded, however, that Renzi – in case of a particularly disappointing result – could threaten  resignation, only in the aim of bringing his  dissident party members to heel. At the moment, most  Italian parliamentarians are terrified at the prospect of early elections  because many of them would  face almost insurmountable difficulty at getting re-elected without the goodwill and support of the leader. Many of them, furthermore, have not completed five years in Parliament and would therefore fail to qualify for the not indifferent pension which  is bestowed upon former Members of Parliament. This threat would almost certainly bring the dissidents back in line, and slightly offset the weakening effect of the  elections.

This situation could also have far-reaching repercussions on the European level, depriving the already vacillating EU leadership of the strong and reliable support of a reliable ally. In case of negative results, Renzi would be forced to mitigate his very strong pro-European stance thus further weakening the decision-making abilities of the Union and consquently diminish its already waning authority.

Carlo Ungaro

Rome, Italy,  April 6 2015

 Italy:  Search for stability or authoritarian drift?

For the past months the European political scene has been dominated by the  Ukraine, by    Greece and by the issue of terrorism. As an inevitable result, attention has moved away from Italy and its apparently fruitless search for political stability.

The current trends in the Italian political scene need to be viewed in the light of the fact that the Prime Minister, Matteo Renzi, although never elected to the Italian Parliament, has led his party to an astounding 41% of the vote in last May’s European elections, and that, according to recent opinion polls, his rate of approval, though dropping, is still over 35%. No political party or leader in the history of the Republic  has ever enjoyed such a position of  voter confidence since the early fifties and even that master vote-getter, Silvio Berlusconi, who has held sway over Italian politics  for the past two decades, never got much past the 30% mark.

Renzi,  whose ideological position can, at best, be described as nebulous, is an example of Italy’s new generation of Roman Catholic politicians, and, even if he is constantly being compared to Berlusconi, far from boasting of his  amorous conquests, he frequently speaks of his past as a boy scout. His one claim to fame, before he went into politics, becoming the “youngest ever” Mayor of Florence,  was his appearance on a  nationally televised quiz-show. For this personable youngster the event marked a fundamental turning point  because the show’s MC, the late Italian-American showman Mike Buongiorno, who actually introduced  the concept of quiz shows to Italian Television and who was also close to the Roman Catholic political hierarchy (two sins for which, it can only be hoped, he is being called to account in his after-life) took the young Matteo Renzi under his protective wing, thus directing his  steps toward a political career.

In attempting to sort out the Italian political scene, it would seem essential, first of all, to answer a fundamental question: “who is Matteo Renzi?”. The meteoric rise to national fame and finally to political power (he is both Prime Minister and Secretary of the majority Democratic Party) of an unelected, and virtually unknown individual in the teeth of furious, often disloyal opposition, mostly  from within his own party, certainly  indicates a strong and ruthlessly determined personality who does not seem destined to be a  flash in the pan phenomenon. He also appears to possess that innate touch of showmanship which, until the arrival of Berlusconi in 1994, was sorely lacking in Italian politicians  and which as yet does not seem to be fully appreciated by the majority of the old guard,  some of whom  don’t seem to realize that they are probably confronted by a political Juggernaut against which traditional means of resistance are fruitless.

Seen in a positive light, all of this could imply that, after two particularly disastrous decades, Italy is finally headed for political stability, a sharp contrast to the  volatility which has beset Italian Governments (about sixty of them, one of which lasted about seven days) ever since the foundation of the Republic in 1948. Italy, however, has a recent history which tends to make it resistant to the very concept of “stability”, and the idea of a politically stable  governmental apparatus  inevitably raises the spectre of a possible authoritarian drift. It is somewhat ironic that the alarm was raised by none other than Silvio Berlusconi, whose declared ambition, while in  Government, was precisely aimed at the attainment of greater power.

Alarm is caused by the two most relevant of the many “reforms” that Renzi is attempting to introduce – with considerable likelihood of success – through a Parliament which seems mesmerized by his dynamic  approach and terrified at the very  idea of having to face a General Election.

The first of these reforms concerns the elimination of one of the two branches of Parliament, the Senate, which would be replaced by a rather ill-defined body loosely modelled on the German Bundesrat. In a society such as Italy, this opens up likely vistas of “unpaid” nominees, selected through the murky processes so typical of this country’s political  scene, yielding considerable occult influence and remaining accountable only to the governing powers and not to a non-existent electorate.

The second “reform”, which critics fear could pave the way for an authoritarian deviation, is centred on the electoral law which needs to be changed by order of the Constitutional Court. The current electoral law does not allow the elector to express a choice on the name of the elected parliamentarians, who are, instead, chosen arbitrarily by the party leaders and are therefore accountable only to them should they wish to seek re-election. The current projected law is, according to critics, even more restrictive because not only  are candidates chosen and submitted to the electorate by the party leaders, but the party which achieves the relative majority in an election obtains a significant “premium” in parliamentary seats and thus rules Parliament with an absolute, unassailable majority for the duration of the Legislature.

In the days of the  so-called “First Republic”, Italian elections were held according to a proportional system, which was thought to be the primary cause of instability and was subsequently subjected to modifications tending towards  “majority” or “first past the post” rules. All of these systems presented defects and caused problems, but they did maintain a direct link  between the electorate and the elected, which has now almost ceased to exist and which will become even weaker through the new proposed  electoral law. The preceding systems also made the Government accountable to Parliament, which could cause its own dissolution and the need for new elections by denying its vote of confidence. This is unlikely to happen if the Parliamentarians’ re-election depends exclusively on the will of the party leaders. It is, in fact, scarcely credible that Parliamentarians, elected to their well-paid  positions through the benevolence of their party leader (who will also be Prime Minister), will cause the downfall of the Government thus ensuring their leader’s hostility and virtually certain exclusion from future electoral lists.

This, of course, will contribute to greater “stability”, but risks also greatly to weaken – indeed, almost eliminate – the system of “checks and balances” which is at the heart of any truly democratic form of government.

This alone could suffice as a warning, but the situation is further aggravated by the perennially sycophantic attitudes of the Italian media (electronic and printed), which is imbued with an instinct for hagiography in favour of those who appear to have a firm grip on power for the foreseeable future. This certainly does nothing to allay the fears currently being raised by the Renzi Government’s lust for  Constitutional “reforms”. The Italian mainstream media – if one  makes exceptions for smaller, minority newspapers or radio stations on the extreme left or right – appears reluctant to express critical views on a personality with a firm long-term grip on power: one never, for example, reads  even the slightest hint of critical appraisal of the Pope or the President of the Republic (elected for a seven year mandate). On the contrary, these personalities are treated with an obsequious reverence which perhaps goes beyond their own  wishes. Since there is no Constitutional provision  to limit the number of consecutive mandates an elected Prime Minister can seek, it will be in the interest of those who manage the mainstream media to instil a favourable attitude in the electorate thus ensuring the longest possible run for  a Prime Minister who will become more and more  beholden to  the good will and support of the media and the economic and political powers behind it.

This will most probably bring about a period of “stability”, but in Italy the concentration of power in the hands of a single leader over a long period could be dangerous, and the risks appear to outweigh any possible benefits.

Carlo Ungaro